The capacity of the milking robot gives you the option of either milking 90 medium level producing cows or 65 high producing cows per robot. At Gimbo Dairy Farm they are aiming for the high production option, currently milking 400 cows in 7 VMS. The eighth VMS will be installed soon.
The production is 28 litres/cow /day and average number of milkings per day is 2.4. Juan is not satisfied with this level of production. He has been working with a cross-breed of Holsteins and Swedish Red, and the strategy has not met his expectations, so he is now in the process of switching back to pure Holsteins to increase production.

The production has not been satisfactory but on the other hand the reproduction status is impressive. The farm’s veterinarian, Hector Andrew, explains that the ideal calving interval is between 13 and 13.5 months, and Juan’s herd averages on 12.8. Getting below 13 months might be possible on a small farm with less than 40 cows, but is difficult on a farm with 400 cows. Hector says that the reason behind the excellent reproduction is the individual attention to the cows. The system allows them to follow each individual cow’s energy balance and body condition closely, ensuring she is in the best possible shape to get pregnant. This close control of each cow also helps them to detect diseases and illnesses at an early stage, before it affects the cows’ performance.

The comfort of the cows is important at Gimbo Dairy Farm. They use cow mats in the cubicles, which is working very well. Both Juan and Hector agree that there are pros and cons with all types of beddings. Shashank thinks that sand might be better from a cow’s perspective, but it involves more work and is more costly. Shashank prefers using cow mats, although he knows that the benefits from using sand bedding are many. He is using a bio-digester for the manure, and the electricity it generates is used to heat the water on the farm. Switching to sand bedding would require a process of separating the sand from the manure and this would be too costly. The comfort of the cow mats are enough to keep the herd healthy, with very little incidence of lameness.

The system limits the social stress in the herd and allows the cows a natural behavior. The cow never has to change groups during her milking period, which reduces stress. The pressure of social hierarchy in a herd is very high. In conventional milking the cows are divided into groups according to in which stage of the milking they are, and they change groups several times during the milking period. Every time a group changes, social order has to be re-established. Every change affects production, and in this system this stress is avoided, since the cow stays in the same group from when she calves until she is dry.