Astronaut Milking Machine

I have now found something else to be geeky about. Robotic Milking Machines - man, they are AWESOME!!! Today was wickedace cos my farm visit was more wonderful than anything I could have ever imagined!!

The Astronaut Milking Machine consists of a couple of pens (one on the left, one on the right), a series of one-way gates, and a robotic arm. The cow can wander in whenever it wants, and the computer scans it (I don't know why I'm saying 'it', all cows are ladies!), or rather the collar she wears, which has computer chips and things in it, and the machine knows whether she has been milked or not. If she hasn't, feed drops down into a tray and the cow happily eats whilst the robotic arm appears underneath her and does its stuff. Firstly, roller brush things and a water spray come on, and the arm cleans the udders!



Then, the suckers, which are individually programmed for each cow's teats (as in, where they are on the udder), suck the milk out one teat at a time (traditional milking parlour suckers suck all the teats at once). As the milk moves through the pipes, it goes through a checking system, which can detect if there are antibiotics or blood in the milk, if the cow has mastitis, or if the milk coming off is colostrum. If it's any of these things, the milk goes into a separate container. Genius!! After all this, the suckers come off, and it's time for another wash, this time, finishing off with a disinfectant spray. Then the cow wanders out again!! If the cow has already been milked, no food drops, and so the cow, upon realising this, wanders out again. They basically stroll in all day and all night, around 7 times each (there's 150 of them in total), which is brilliant for both milk yield and quality. And they're happy to do it, cos they get fed. It was fab to see, as I'm sure the random selection of photos will demonstrate!



We then wandered off and saw some little calflings!! They were tiny small, the cutest things ever making their little mooey noises! It was all so exciting that by the time I'd got back in the car I was shattered. It's tiring work seeing magic happen.

So that was my day. I am now going to spend the rest of the evening swotting up on dairy equipment.