Lely Juno pays its way on Rowreagh farm

They milk 500 cows with a yield of 10,000 ltr per cow of which 4,600 ltr is from forage.

The award-winning farm is recognised as one of the most progressive and innovative in Northern Ireland.

One of the many innovations on the farm is the Lely Juno robotic silage pusher. True to form they were one of the earliest customers of the Juno, installing it in 2012.

“I took up a trial offer in 2012. Previously we would have pushed up three times a day, but during silage making and harvesting it wouldn’t have been done as often as it should have. It was a hassle to get back to the yard change implements push up then go back to field work. On average it was taking one hour a day to push silage, a man and loader costs c. £30 per hour. The Juno is set to push feed every two hours, it stimulates the cows to come forward which increases intakes. It saves labour and does a better job,” commented Thomas.

“During the bad spring of 2013 we got a lot of snow and the Juno couldn’t work for three days, the cows yield went down 1ltr and then back up 1ltr again when the Juno was going again. I now see it as a necessity as it goes 12 times a day 365 days a year, we couldn’t do that manually, its worth around £130 per day for the extra milk and cost savings,” concluded Thomas Steele.

The first generation of the Lely Juno was launched 10 years ago, the third generation was launched in 2018 with significant improvements. It can push feed 24/7 helping to increase intakes and performance. It is especially beneficial for freshly calved cows, less dominant cows and heifers who visit the feed fence after the more dominant cows have finished. Farms with limited feed space and little time to push feed will see the highest benefit for example a recent study published by Siewert etal in the Journal of Dairy Science in 2018, reported some farms achieved up to 4.9kg per day extra milk yield with robotic feed pushing.

Visit lely.com/gb/solutions/feeding/juno/ for more information on the Juno or lely.com/gb/feed-gap/ to find out more about how to assess if a feed gap is affecting your livestock performance.

For the average dairy farm in Northern Ireland the Lely Juno could pay for itself within a few years. Lely Center Eglish have a special offer available now of ‘0% Finance.’ Farmers who are interested in trying the Lely Juno robotic feed pusher should call the office, a member of the sales team will call and look at the sheds to do a quick suitability assessment.

For more information call Lely Center Eglish on 02837548228.