King Island Dairy is about a month away from switching on a robotic milking shed that will let its cows decide when they are milked.
Managing director Nick Dobromilsky said the multi-million-dollar shed on the Bass Strait island used a Lely milking system, allowing cows to move freely in and out of the barn whenever they wanted to be milked.
“The milk quality will go up, which will lead to better quality cheese,” he said.
Every milking station tests the milk while the cow is being milked. The cows also wear ear sensors that monitor their health.
Dobromilsky said that made it easier to monitor cows individually than in a conventional rotary shed.
He said a higher than normal milk temperature could point to a fever, so the cow could be separated and checked by a farmer early, rather than when it started showing signs of illness.
“This one here is preventative medicine, basically,” he said.
He said the technology was well established in Europe, but estimated only around 2% of Australian dairies had adopted it.
NSW Department of Primary Industries research puts the figure at around 1.5% cent.
Dobromilsky said farmers “typically don’t like change”, which he believed was why the system was less common in Australia.
“If you have a different change of mindset, this is probably the way of the future,” he said.
He said the robots would not mean fewer workers.
Instead of spending around eight hours a day milking, staff would spend more time in the paddocks while still checking cows and cleaning the robots.
The company is now testing the milk and grain lines. Dobromilsky said the cows would take seven to 14 days to learn the system once it started.
After around six months of refining the farm’s processes, the company plans to open the shed to visitors, with children able to help feed the cows.
Opening the shed to the public would be “teaching people about where milk comes from”, Dobromilsky said.
King Island Dairy is also releasing new cheeses, including a lighter blue that Dobromilsky said took around 12 months to develop.
