Automatic calf feeders...

Becky

Becky

Member
Hi

Im thinking of getting into calve rearing and am curious about the automatic calf feeders out there. Does anyone have one and how much do they cost brand new or second hand? I looked up the Lely feeder which looks pretty smart but dread to think how much they cost. Is it worth buying one rearing 30 calves a year?...
 
imo for 30 calves ,buy a couple of jfc 10 teat and 6 teat feeders .
There is a service maintenance contract to go with them feeders also at €300 /year ,much point having one and it broken down and you listening to bawling calves!!!!
 
Maybe starting off you might be better off with a water heater, and 3 groups of 10.
 
We use one for the heifer calves on a out farm using milk replacer. 4 stations .order all tags electronic at 1 euro a calf extra from tag suppliers. Does the weigher and milking parlour too.
 
Looking for one for next year had 95 calves here this year and when the spring work started it was a lot of work to feed them everyday.have a 200l barrell on wheels nd mix it up nd bucket it into the 10 teat feeders.when we were flat out the mother was left to feed in the evenings nd not easy.id rather rear an extra few calves to pay for the automatic feeder than have to bucket feed them again.neighbour has a u40 nd gets on well with it for the past 15 years.plan to have 2 pens of 35 calves side by side nd set the feeder up in the middle.
 
I would be worried about spread of disease risk with a large number of calves using the one teat. Vet I know was on about changing the tat 3 times a day to reduce spread of diseases. I know im working In a high disease environment so my concerns would probably be OTT to others
 
john415 said:
Looking for one for next year had 95 calves here this year and when the spring work started it was a lot of work to feed them everyday.have a 200l barrell on wheels nd mix it up nd bucket it into the 10 teat feeders.when we were flat out the mother was left to feed in the evenings nd not easy.id rather rear an extra few calves to pay for the automatic feeder than have to bucket feed them again.neighbour has a u40 nd gets on well with it for the past 15 years.plan to have 2 pens of 35 calves side by side nd set the feeder up in the middle.
Click to expand...
Id say you wont manage to feed 35 calves well as they are only designed for 30 calves max. It would be ok for a while but as calves get bigger and start to drink more they will start to miss their feeding times and performance will suffer
 
bruceythom said:
Thanks Nash. We all have a responsibility to look after our animals to our best ability and not using economics to determine their level of care. Male and female are treated the same here, just in different sheds.
Click to expand...
Great article Bruce I’m very impressed. Just a question why the urban calf feeder? Why complicate calf rearing in my experience they complicate calf rearing. Why not rear them in the same way you milk cows no Computer’s no breakdowns reliable and easy to use.. ?? Thanks Bruce and reading your interview shows me you don’t do anything without putting thought into it.
 
Little hill farm said:
Great article Bruce I’m very impressed. Just a question why the urban calf feeder? Why complicate calf rearing in my experience they complicate calf rearing. Why not rear them in the same way you milk cows no Computer’s no breakdowns reliable and easy to use.. ?? Thanks Bruce and reading your interview shows me you don’t do anything without putting thought into it.
Click to expand...
Yea, fair point re. calf feeder. However it has made the calf rearing very simple for us. Pour in the powder and it works away, no different feed groups etc. We were on a trailed feeder and with calves generally outdoors, but there is nothing easy about it, it's labourous heavy work mixing feed to the correct temp and volume, pushing calves around and checking that they are all drinking well. I think they will become more common, they do need to iron out a few details as they all have some serious downfalls. No matter how you go about it, calf rearing is not a simple task.
Also, we wanted to have a feeding system that got us away from the real pinch of work at both ends of the day, being able to take a quick glance at a screen before we head to the parlour means we know that all calves have been fed.
I'm not afraid of technology, but unless it's going to actually simplify the operation then it's not here.
 
bruceythom said:
Yea, fair point re. calf feeder. However it has made the calf rearing very simple for us. Pour in the powder and it works away, no different feed groups etc. We were on a trailed feeder and with calves generally outdoors, but there is nothing easy about it, it's labourous heavy work mixing feed to the correct temp and volume, pushing calves around and checking that they are all drinking well. I think they will become more common, they do need to iron out a few details as they all have some serious downfalls. No matter how you go about it, calf rearing is not a simple task.
Also, we wanted to have a feeding system that got us away from the real pinch of work at both ends of the day, being able to take a quick glance at a screen before we head to the parlour means we know that all calves have been fed.
I'm not afraid of technology, but unless it's going to actually simplify the operation then it's not here.
Click to expand...

Good points made there Bruce but I’ve had one and parted company this year found them an expensive way to rear calves. Service and replacement parts cost 2000 per year for me also I found if calves were not put on early3-4 days it was very laboursome training them. As for having it texting u with alerts were going like the robot milking then. One other thing I found was if a calf had a cold by next day most calves in group would have shared teat and problems spread and leaving calves out early was a no runner with it as calves were slow to come in to feed and bringing muck back in door of the calf shed. One other thing on the urban the guys installing and servicing them were always under pressure you would have to have given an hour or to trying to fix it and they talking I throug it before the decide it warrants a call.Anyway it’s just my opinion.
 
Little hill farm said:
Good points made there Bruce but I’ve had one and parted company this year found them an expensive way to rear calves. Service and replacement parts cost 2000 per year for me also I found if calves were not put on early3-4 days it was very laboursome training them. As for having it texting u with alerts were going like the robot milking then. One other thing I found was if a calf had a cold by next day most calves in group would have shared teat and problems spread and leaving calves out early was a no runner with it as calves were slow to come in to feed and bringing muck back in door of the calf shed. One other thing on the urban the guys installing and servicing them were always under pressure you would have to have given an hour or to trying to fix it and they talking I throug it before the decide it warrants a call.Anyway it’s just my opinion.
Click to expand...

I found the same with my computerised calf feeder,I couldn’t get rid fast enough.
 
Little hill farm said:
Good points made there Bruce but I’ve had one and parted company this year found them an expensive way to rear calves. Service and replacement parts cost 2000 per year for me also I found if calves were not put on early3-4 days it was very laboursome training them. As for having it texting u with alerts were going like the robot milking then. One other thing I found was if a calf had a cold by next day most calves in group would have shared teat and problems spread and leaving calves out early was a no runner with it as calves were slow to come in to feed and bringing muck back in door of the calf shed. One other thing on the urban the guys installing and servicing them were always under pressure you would have to have given an hour or to trying to fix it and they talking I throug it before the decide it warrants a call.Anyway it’s just my opinion.
Click to expand...
Mine isn't hooked up to my phone, don't see why it'd need to text me tbh?? Calves are either drinking or not, I'll see that in the morning when I come in to the yard. Our first calves are coming off of it weaned now, far superior to any calves we have ever raised before and we.had more work with calf rearing when we had a 50 cow herd.
I've been looking in to this for a number of years and the vast majority of lads that put them in swear by them. I know of one guy who took one out because he was using too much powder.
I put 4 new calves in to the pen with the feeder today, 2 of them trained themselves as they were hungry, the other 2 were pushed in once this morning, and again this afternoon, I don't expect we'll have to push them in again.
What make of a one did you have?? Is it sold yet?
 
We’re in our second year with 2 Urbans from volac, the system is brilliant. It’s as good as an extra man around the yard, but it’s more consistent than a man manually feeding. The machine and more so the service leave a lot to be desired but if it goes wrong they’re not exactly a rocket ship so it’s not rocket science if somethings up but you’d want to be willing to sort it yourself.
I don’t know where to start on the back up... the short story is that it is atrocious in our experience, I had the story nearly typed and thought better of it but anyone with a feeder my advice is don’t leave their side when they’re servicing it. In hindsight I wouldn’t buy the same machines again
 
bruceythom said:
Mine isn't hooked up to my phone, don't see why it'd need to text me tbh?? Calves are either drinking or not, I'll see that in the morning when I come in to the yard. Our first calves are coming off of it weaned now, far superior to any calves we have ever raised before and we.had more work with calf rearing when we had a 50 cow herd.
I've been looking in to this for a number of years and the vast majority of lads that put them in swear by them. I know of one guy who took one out because he was using too much powder.
I put 4 new calves in to the pen with the feeder today, 2 of them trained themselves
bruceythom said:
Mine isn't hooked up to my phone, don't see why it'd need to text me tbh?? Calves are either drinking or not, I'll see that in the morning when I come in to the yard. Our first calves are coming off of it weaned now, far superior to any calves we have ever raised before and we.had more work with calf rearing when we had a 50 cow herd.
I've been looking in to this for a number of years and the vast majority of lads that put them in swear by them. I know of one guy who took one out because he was using too much powder.
I put 4 new calves in to the pen with the feeder today, 2 of them trained themselves as they were hungry, the other 2 were pushed in once this morning, and again this afternoon, I don't expect we'll have to push them in again.
What make of a one did you have?? Is it sold yet?
Click to expand...

as they were hungry, the other 2 were pushed in once this morning, and again this afternoon, I don't expect we'll have to push them in again.
What make of a one did you have?? Is it sold yet?[/QUOTE
bruceythom said:
Mine isn't hooked up to my phone, don't see why it'd need to text me tbh?? Calves are either drinking or not, I'll see that in the morning when I come in to the yard. Our first calves are coming off of it weaned now, far superior to any calves we have ever raised before and we.had more work with calf rearing when we had a 50 cow herd.
I've been looking in to this for a number of years and the vast majority of lads that put them in swear by them. I know of one guy who took one out because he was using too much powder.
.I put 4 new calves in to the pen with the feeder today, 2 of them trained themselves as they were hungry, the other 2 were pushed in once this morning, and again this afternoon, I don't expect we'llbil
have to push them in again.
What make of a one did you have?? Is it sold yet?[er/QUOTE]
same as yours .were back to Mobile tank and pump.: I think I spot problems quick this way . We’re moving our second batch out tomorrow’ something we could not do with auto feeder. V
bruceythom said:
Mine isn't hooked up to my phone, don't see why it'd need to text me tbh?? Calves are either drinking or not, I'll see that in the morning when I come in to the yard. Our first calves are coming off of it weaned now, far superior to any calves we have ever raised before and we.had more work with calf rearing when we had a 50 cow herd.
I've been looking in to this for a number of years and the vast majority of lads that put them in swear by them. I know of one guy who took one out because he was using too much powder.
I put 4 new calves in to the pen with the feeder today, 2 of them trained themselves as they were hungry, the other 2 were pushed in once this morning, and again this
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
bruceythom said:
Mine isn't hooked up to my phone, don't see why it'd need to text me tbh?? Calves are either drinking or not, I'll see that in the morning when I come in to the yard. Our first calves are coming off of it weaned now, far superior to any calves we have ever raised before and we.had more work with calf rearing when we had a 50 cow herd.
I've been looking in to this for a number of years and the vast majority of lads that put them in swear by them. I know of one guy who took one out because he was using too much powder.
I put 4 new calves in to the pen with the feeder today, 2 of them trained themselves as they were hungry, the other 2 were pushed in once this morning, and again this afternoon, I don't expect we'll have to push them in again.
What make of a one did you have?? Is it sold yet?
Click to expand...
same as yours. They have advantages but not for me our second batch of calves are moving out to grass tomorrow and will be fed on 50 teat we could not do that with ao
 
denis086 said:
We’re in our second year with 2 Urbans from volac, the system is brilliant. It’s as good as an extra man around the yard, but it’s more consistent than a man manually feeding. The machine and more so the service leave a lot to be desired but if it goes wrong they’re not exactly a rocket ship so it’s not rocket science if somethings up but you’d want to be willing to sort it yourself.
I don’t know where to start on the back up... the short story is that it is atrocious in our experience, I had the story nearly typed and thought better of it but anyone with a feeder my advice is don’t leave their side when they’re servicing it. In hindsight I wouldn’t buy the same machines again
Click to expand...

Have had an intermittent problem.with ours reading tags (some static electricity) and have to say I didn't find that re. service. Local service guy, area sales rep and even an engineer from Germany have been out with it checking it out.
Yes, the machine has its design flaws which I gladly pointed out to said German engineer. But every one of them does. The Urban won for us because its able to feed in all stations at once (massive plus) and you don't have to register calves on it, just push them in and it works away.
Hopper size.is too small IMV and the stalling isn't really suited to JEX!
 
Bought an Urban this year. It is a serious saving in work, however not without it's faults, but like 4wd or a self levelling loader would never go back to the old way. The jury is still out as to whether the Urban machine was the correct choice.

  1. The screen is super and better than any other machine.
  2. Calves are happier, more even and no pot bellies.
  3. The hopper is too small, even with the extension, we have 60 on it and they are going through 3 or 4 bags a day, the hopper prob holds 3.
  4. We had a dose of scour through the shed the feeder is in. It spread quickly as we left the sick calves on the feeder when we should have pulled them out and fed them twice a day until they recovered. It is a lot quicker just to feed them rather than pushing weak calves into the feeder
  5. The mixing bowl is too small imv, less than a litre I'd say, the machine stops feeding milk to the station to wait for it to mix more. This could happen several times as there are 3 calves drinking at once. Ours is a 3 station supposed to be able for 90 calves, I don't know if there's any point in a 4th station, it can only feed as much as the bowl can mix. Only found out after that Dairymaster's (Holm and Laue) 4 station machine has two mixing bowls. Would have gone for a Dairymaster one and probably should have, was just afraid the calves would be fattened and hanging up by the time they got around to installing it. I did find the lads from Cashel that installed the machine and fixed a breakdown, more on this below, to be very good and came quickly - first thing the next morning in the case of the breakdown.
  6. There's a motor driving the auger feeding the powder from the hopper (which is a bag) to the mixing bowl. A bracket attaching this to the shaft which massages the bag broke off and stopped the machine one night. It was a stainless bracket with the robotic welding resembling tinfoil. Not exactly vorsprung durch technik! Not exactly what you want to see at 9pm. They did come first thing in fairness, I was fairly insistent.. we did feed them all by hand the next morning to avoid a massive queue at the machine and bullying/stress etc. Of course I was the first person ever in history to have that problem but they had a heavier bracket to replace it with.
  7. The salesman set it up to dose them with Halicur for the first week. What he didn't tell us is that this puts the machine into individual feeding mode. So if you have 15 calves on the Halicur getting fed 3 times a day when they walk into the stall they have to wait until the bowl is empty, then wait on it to mix all the while the other poor hoors in the other two stalls are standing waiting also. That's 45 times 45 calves are standing waiting and young calves getting started on the feeder won't wait. We found we were having a backlog building up which never cleared.
  8. The way the machine is set up on delivery it will stop the feeding and recirculate the milk in the lines if it detects the temperature at the station to be dropping. Trouble is it was way too sensitive and was recirculating every 15 seconds or so. Calves would lose interest and feck off. Got that taken off as well. The milk won't go cold if the calf is let drink it.
When we got the scour we stopped adding calves to the shed with the feeder in it. I'll add more now that they are all healthy to see where the limit is. It would be at it's limit feeding 90 calves, the bowl is the limiting factor, not the number of stations. As ever, don't listen to salesmen, did I mention I hate them, talk to someone who has the machine. I think it is designed for continental herds the majority of whom who don't seem to be at the scale we are at here or are maybe calving all year.

From our experience of the calf feeder there is no way I would ever have a robot milking machine. If it breaks down for any length of time it would take days to get back to normal with the machine milking through the backlog one at a time. With a parlour you fix it yourself and milk them, drama over.
 
Yes I agree they definitely put me off robots. We had a four station machine and had 130+calves on it . I went away one Saturday at dinner time the feeder stopped feeding due to a fault the guy I had called the service men Sunday morning I got back at 2pm and no machine fixed I spen a long hour in a noisy calf shed tinkering with it until I fixed it I called Monday morn and was told it. Oils be after dinner by time they would be with me. I said I had fixed problem. My mind was made up to sell it that day. Sometimes you have to go backwards to go foreword in my opinion
 
6600 said:
Bought an Urban this year. It is a serious saving in work, however not without it's faults, but like 4wd or a self levelling loader would never go back to the old way. The jury is still out as to whether the Urban machine was the correct choice.

  1. The screen is super and better than any other machine.
  2. Calves are happier, more even and no pot bellies.
  3. The hopper is too small, even with the extension, we have 60 on it and they are going through 3 or 4 bags a day, the hopper prob holds 3.
  4. We had a dose of scour through the shed the feeder is in. It spread quickly as we left the sick calves on the feeder when we should have pulled them out and fed them twice a day until they recovered. It is a lot quicker just to feed them rather than pushing weak calves into the feeder
  5. The mixing bowl is too small imv, less than a litre I'd say, the machine stops feeding milk to the station to wait for it to mix more. This could happen several times as there are 3 calves drinking at once. Ours is a 3 station supposed to be able for 90 calves, I don't know if there's any point in a 4th station, it can only feed as much as the bowl can mix. Only found out after that Dairymaster's (Holm and Laue) 4 station machine has two mixing bowls. Would have gone for a Dairymaster one and probably should have, was just afraid the calves would be fattened and hanging up by the time they got around to installing it. I did find the lads from Cashel that installed the machine and fixed a breakdown, more on this below, to be very good and came quickly - first thing the next morning in the case of the breakdown.
  6. There's a motor driving the auger feeding the powder from the hopper (which is a bag) to the mixing bowl. A bracket attaching this to the shaft which massages the bag broke off and stopped the machine one night. It was a stainless bracket with the robotic welding resembling tinfoil. Not exactly vorsprung durch technik! Not exactly what you want to see at 9pm. They did come first thing in fairness, I was fairly insistent.. we did feed them all by hand the next morning to avoid a massive queue at the machine and bullying/stress etc. Of course I was the first person ever in history to have that problem but they had a heavier bracket to replace it with.
  7. The salesman set it up to dose them with Halicur for the first week. What he didn't tell us is that this puts the machine into individual feeding mode. So if you have 15 calves on the Halicur getting fed 3 times a day when they walk into the stall they have to wait until the bowl is empty, then wait on it to mix all the while the other poor hoors in the other two stalls are standing waiting also. That's 45 times 45 calves are standing waiting and young calves getting started on the feeder won't wait. We found we were having a backlog building up which never cleared.
  8. The way the machine is set up on delivery it will stop the feeding and recirculate the milk in the lines if it detects the temperature at the station to be dropping. Trouble is it was way too sensitive and was recirculating every 15 seconds or so. Calves would lose interest and feck off. Got that taken off as well. The milk won't go cold if the calf is let drink it.
When we got the scour we stopped adding calves to the shed with the feeder in it. I'll add more now that they are all healthy to see where the limit is. It would be at it's limit feeding 90 calves, the bowl is the limiting factor, not the number of stations. As ever, don't listen to salesmen, did I mention I hate them, talk to someone who has the machine. I think it is designed for continental herds the majority of whom who don't seem to be at the scale we are at here or are maybe calving all year.

From our experience of the calf feeder there is no way I would ever have a robot milking machine. If it breaks down for any length of time it would take days to get back to normal with the machine milking through the backlog one at a time. With a parlour you fix it yourself and milk them, drama over.
Click to expand...

I wondered how it might work the halocur alright. Would you consider not using the machine to administer it and just do it yourself??

Mixing bowl is small, but it's able to feed 4 at a time, looked at Holm and Laue, too many moving parts and only feeds 2 at a time.

We had 110 on ours working away fine, 65 of which were on 2 stations. keeping powder in the ridiculously small hopper was our issue, none of the competitors have a decent hopper either. We have 2 water issues with ours so far, when I say water issues, as in there was no water on the farm for overnight when the feeder was loaded with calves. The first time it took the bones of 24hrs to catch up on itself, the second time I went in to the settings, lowered the water temperature and cancelled a wash......backlog cleared in no time.

I take people's point re. bugs spreading easier, and I can't dispel it, all I can say is that our calves were never as healthy and have never throve as well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top