Pop the champagne on our first season!
31 May 2017 marked the finish line of our first season of farming with robots, and our cows first season as being able to choose when they milk... done and dusted! Were there times when we wondered what the heck we had done...yes of course! Were there times when we had to pinch ourselves that the milk was flowing into the vat, our cows were healthier than ever and we were finding a flexibility of time that we have never had before as dairy farmers...absolutely! We don't dry off all of our cows at once here, the robots are continually milking - but our Spring calving cows are now starting to dry off and we chauffeur these girls in small groups to the run off to have their 2 month rest, whereas our Autumn calving cows are in early lactation and we will continue to send their milk to the factory throughout the winter. After drying off a number already, we now have around 130 cows milking and that will get down to about 70 for the bulk of the Winter.
We absolutely enjoyed the visit from 55 children from our son's school who came for a farm and robot tour last week. So many wonderful questions from the middle school year group. Some of the children are from farming backgrounds but many are not, and all were inquisitive and evidently there were some very tired children by dinner time that night! The bus to and from the farm was also a big hit. Thanks to Jo from DairyNZ for helping us out and also for the resources and I have also heard the bus costs are reimbursed to the school through DairyNZ so that is awesome! Max at Fonterra made sure the tanker arrived while the children were there - thanks Max! We heard from the children that highlights were Big Red Trev the Hereford bull having a back massage on the Lely whirly brush, patting the friendly cows - Smoochy Smoochy #20 was a star as usual, and of course watching the robots.
