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Farm/dairy name: Kelloe Mains
Owners: McDonald Partners
No of dairy cows: 480
Breed of cows: Holstein/Friesian
Housing: Umbrella building
Milking system: DeLaval HBR internal rotary parlour
Number of milkings per day: 2
Mr McDonald succeeded his father who took over the farm in 1935. The farm is 2470 acres of which 350 acres are grass. In the 70’s Mr McDonald had a competitive external rotary but changed this for a conventional DeLaval 20x20 herringbone parlour
When this was overtaken by the increase in cow numbers, the hunt was on for a new parlour. He was reluctant to go for another rotary due to the bad experience with the first. However, when he saw the DeLaval HBR internal rotary he was very impressed and the decision was made to install a 40 point machine with a full Alpro® system in October 2003
The cows are housed for the first 20 days after calving in straw yards after that they move to a large umbrella building in cow cubicles with automatic scraper passages. Equipped with waterbeds the cubicles are covered with sawdust and lime mixture to keep the cows clean and dry. The waterbeds were introduced in 2001 and Mr McDonald said, “I’ve never seen the cows look so comfortable”
An all TMR system is used with whole crop silage, and straw is fed by diet feeder wagon. Mr McDonald employs an independent feed consultant to advise on the dairy rations.
The herd average is 9,200 litres per cow per year at 3.87% butterfat content and 3.31% protein with the bactascan and SCC well under control. Milking is in a DeLaval 40 point HBR internal parlour, which has a full Alpro® automation package, including automatic parlour identification, milk yield metering and automatic diversion facilities. The cows have transponders and activity meters.
Herd Manager Sandy Don said, “The cows just love it. They come in just fine. I like the way it is a one-man operation and the operator can see the cows throughout the milking cycle. It even slows down and waits if a cow has not quite finished in time. It removes all the worry and operator stress and is a pleasure to work in”
Some of the cows wear activity meters, which monitor their movements during the day, especially useful for determining when a cow is coming into heat. Sandy brought a cow record up on the office PC and said “Look at this cow. You can see from the activity record that she is clearly bulling - none of us spotted it this morning, but the computer has diverted the cow for our inspection saving us time and money”.
All the electronics are mounted in Mystro milking point cabinets of which Sandy said, “The equipment is well protected and looks very smart. We have no problems at all with this level of electronic equipment”
Mr McDonald said “The plant was installed in October 2003 and is going well”. Asked why he choose DeLaval as his partner he commented “It was easy - I just looked at the global marked share and there is no contest”
Mr McDonald said “The farm is very flexible. All crops - wheat, barley and oil seed rape can ne grown very early”. Asked why he still had cows when a lot of neighbours had changed over to arable he said “Arable is quite boring really - you plant it - it grows - you harvest. With cows it is more interesting. There is a fresh challenge every day”
Mather Ltd of Dumfries, who is about 2 hours from the farm, carries out the installation and service. Managing Director Chris Mather said, “As the number of cows and the distance between dairy farms in Scotland has increased we have had to be on the ball. Our telephone diagnostics and ensuring our engineers carry the correct parts has become vitally important, as has the need for preventative service. We can’t afford to let Mr McDonald or his 500 cows down”
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