Milking, the hi-tech way

This leading dairy farmer installed the largest rotary milking unit in the Southern Hemisphere.

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But don't buy expensive equipment unless it fits in with your management system, he warned.

As modern dairy farming becomes increasingly sophisticated, it becomes more important for farmers to make sure they buy only the equipment that will enable them to move in the direction they want to go.

"Computer control is a valuable tool in dairy management, but it must be used correctly. A farmer must think very carefully about his whole management programme before he buys expensive equipment." So says Denton Osler of Denmar Friesland Stud, at Slabberts in the Eastern Free State, who has recently installed the largest rotary milking unit in the Southern Hemisphere. It's a 40-cow unit fitted with computerised equipment to monitor the output of his Friesland/Holstein dairy herd.

The huge table takes about 7 min 30 sec to make a complete revolution, and can handle about 320 cows in an hour. As each cow steps on to the table, her number is typed into the stall unit at her milking point.

Her udder is given a dry wipe (unless she is very muddy), she is stripped and tested for mastitis, and the cluster attached to her teats. The computer then records all the pertinent information about the milking process, such as rate of flow and quantity.