Rural News // October 2, 2012
54 machinery & products
One thousand farmers can’t be wrong AUTOMATED DRAFTING is reported to be allowing a Taranaki farmer and his staff to concentrate on getting the best out of their cows, not chasing them up races. Chris Amon recently installed an LIC Protrack Vector farm automation system at his Waverley farm, to maximise production and make life a bit easier. The system provides automatic animal identification and drafting with a three-way gate and a touch screen in the shed to access his herd information in MINDA. “Drafting is so labour intensive and generally requires an extra person in the shed. It can be really stressful at the busy times of year but this will make it much easier and quicker. We can concentrate on milking the cows and let the drafting system do its thing rather than chasing cows up and down races or around the paddock.” Amon had the system retrofitted to his 38-aside herringbone shed, and was involved in the installation process to ensure it was exactly how he wanted. “When I do something, I like to do it properly, and I’m satisfied we did the best we could with an old shed.
“I chose the Vector system because it puts all my Minda records in the shed too. I can set up all my groups to be drafted from home, whether it’s cows over 1.4 milk solids, high cell count, aged cows for drying off, or even ones scheduled to go to the works. “We can keep milking them right up until the last day and then Protrack will draft them out. “Before we had to physically look at each cow, and their eartags to find the ones we wanted and then try to get them out of the mob – easier said than done in a herringbone when you have 38 cows bent on getting back to their paddock with the rest of their herd mates.” Amon says the investment is as much for his staff as for him and the herd’s productivity. Chris and Karley Amon with sons Max and “There’s no denying that Jack (on bike). the better the farm setup, cial mating and calving times. the better the people you “Drafting is a job we probably tended attract and the longer they stay.” He expects they will be drafting more to shy away from at times, and say ‘oh animals and more regularly with the well, we’ll get her next time,’ but that all Protrack system, especially in the cru- impacts on production, and if she’s on
heat then that’s a huge missed opportunity. “Now, it’ll be so easy, there’ll be no reason not to draft, and we won’t need the extra person to draft at milking
during AB. We’ll just punch into the system the numbers of the cows we see bulling, and they’ll be there in the pen waiting after milking or I can set up a group at home in Minda and they’ll get drafted out no worries. “Protrack will make a huge improvement because we won’t miss anything. “It’ll streamline everything and speed it up because they don’t make milk standing in the shed so we need to get them back onto the pasture, to feed, as quickly as possible.” The Amons’ Protrack installation is the 1000th since the launching in 2003. Garth Anderson, LIC’s farm automation manager, says the system has proven particularly popular over the last year, as farmers seek more stability in a volatile industry. “They’re at the mercy of a number of factors they cannot control, but Protrack provides them with an extra pair of hands that they can rely on, day after day, no matter what the weather or the payout are.”
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