ChewintheCud Podcast

Cows Choose Breakfast, Robots Do The Dishes

• ChewintheCud Ltd • Season 4 • Episode 14

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Fresh grass, quiet robots, and cows that choose their own breakfast. That’s the unexpected picture that emerges when grazing meets automation on modern UK dairy farms. We sit down with Matthew Senior, Farmer & Robot Grazing Consultant and George Dalton, Farmer, who prove robotic milking doesn’t end pasture; it strengthens it, from ABC grazing schedules to leaner labour and sharper decisions.

We unpack why a shift from spring to autumn block calving can fit dry summers, wet winters, and evolving milk contracts. The conversation follows the practical steps: planning lanes and gates, sizing paddocks, sticking to entry covers around 2,800–3,000 and residuals at 1,500–1,600, and letting the grazeway gate cue movement every eight hours. The cows’ driver isn’t sweets in the stall; it’s fresh pasture on the other side of the robot. Average visits hover around two per day, robots stay free for heifers and fresh cows, and the yard stops feeling like a twice-daily stampede.

We also dive into self-feed silage for autumn herds: building a wide pad, layering grass cuts, topping with maize and rape meal, and training cows to eat over a wire without waste. It’s not no work, it’s different work—periodic unsheeting, tidy faces, good wire geometry—and it cuts reliance on mixers and daily diesel. On the data front, collars and robot software deliver fast, focused insight: daily milk records, rumination, activity, and health and heat lists that you act on with judgement, not panic. Many alerts self-resolve; late-lactation cows don’t need three milkings; breeding gets simpler when the gate auto-segregates cows for AI.

The real win is balance. Yields rise with targeted cake, antibiotics fall, and days become more flexible. Visitors see cows roaming by choice, a powerful story for animal welfare and transparency. If you’ve ever wondered whether robots and grazing can coexist, this is a clear, practical roadmap that shows how to get more milk from grass, protect soil and lanes, and reclaim your time.

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This was recorded in January 2026, and all information was correct at the time of recording.

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Andrew Jones:

This is the Chewinthe Cud Podcast, a podcast for the UK dairy industry, brought to you from the southwest of England and listened to around the world. Hello and welcome to Chewin the Cud Podcast. My name is Andrew Jones, and with me as always is Sarah Bolt. How are you doing, Sarah?

Sarah Bolt:

I'm very well, thank you, Andrew. How are things with you?

Andrew Jones:

Yeah, sun's shining today, so can't complain, can't complain. Um, we've got a really interesting podcast today. It wasn't uh originally planned. It was probably planned to go out in about a month's time, but due to other circumstances, we've been asked to delay another one, which we'll talk about in a minute. Um But uh yeah, so today we're gonna talk about grazing with robots.

Sarah Bolt:

It's really, really uh interesting, this one. I think that so many people think robots mean indoor housed cows, and uh this certainly puts uh puts pay to that idea.

Andrew Jones:

Exactly. You might think, why are we talking about grazing in January? But I can certainly assure you that one of our guests will graze in January if the conditions are right. And really, I know it only seems like the chaos only came in probably five minutes ago, especially given the autumn we had. It's never too early to start about grazing. If you're talking seriously about grazing, you probably want to be starting in a month's time anyway, don't you?

Sarah Bolt:

Definitely. At least planning.

Andrew Jones:

Well, yeah, weather permitting, obviously. Obviously, obviously. Um but yes, just sort of saying, I suppose it's a bit of a tease. Um, we were gonna put something else out which um we're not allowed to talk about yet. Uh it will be a bit of an exclusive um on the podcast. Uh, but uh we've been asked to put it back a month um simply because it's gonna be another farming press as well, and they just want us to hold it back until it's um available elsewhere to see about it, and all the stakeholders involved are are all lined up. So um in a month's time you hopefully understand why. It's uh I think something could be quite exciting, isn't it?

Sarah Bolt:

It's a really exciting project that uh that our guests are gonna share with us. So uh yeah, it's I guess it's always the the case when things are being published and and everything else that we've all got to as I say, as you said, have your ducks all in a row and uh I guess it's just a a juggling uh juggling act for all of us.

Andrew Jones:

Well it is, uh let's be blunt. It's a little bit frustrating from our end because it's here, it's ready to go, and it was going to go, but we've been asked to put it back, so here we are. Um otherwise, it you know, because it it doesn't matter, we can juggle things around. Otherwise, let's go talk about grazing with robots. This podcast has been brought to you today by ChewintheCud Ltd, who offer completely independent dairy and beef nutrition. Cow signals advice and training, along with ROM's mobility scoring. For more details on these and other services available, please visit our website www.chewinthecud.com or email us directly on nutrition at tune the cud.com. ChewintheCud Ltd now offers first aid training from a registered first aid at work trainer and experienced minor injuries practitioner. More details, please visit our website www.chewinthecud.com or email us directly on training at tune the cud.com. Hello, I'm Andrew Jones.

Sarah Bolt:

And I'm Sarah Bolt.

Andrew Jones:

And welcome to the ChewintheCud Podcast, a podcast for the UK dairy industry.

Sarah Bolt:

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Andrew Jones:

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Sarah Bolt:

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Andrew Jones:

Enjoy today's episode. Hello and welcome back to ChewintheCud Podcast. Today we are talking about robots and grazing, and our guests are first of all Matthew Senior. Hello Matthew. Hello. And uh George Dalton. Hello, George. Hello. Um, welcome to you both. Um, like usual, um, Matt, do you want to start with yourself and how you got to where you are today?

Matthew Senior:

Uh yeah, so I'm running, we have a 330 cow organic dairy herd at home, run on four Lely robots uh with split block carving. Uh 6040 autumn spring now. Um and fully grazing from February to mid-November, end of November most years, if we can. I also do a little bit with Lely Yeo vil and support the FMS, so the farm management support side, um, for grazing farms and setting up when people get started.

Andrew Jones:

So George?

George Dalton:

Yep, so we've got a 550-acre uh family dairy farm where we've got 250 autumn carving cows. Um there's a bit more of a story as to how we got to that stage. Um, but I've been using four Lely A5 robots for uh for two years now. Um and yes, milk 250 grazing uh and self-feed silage as well.

Andrew Jones:

And that's as you say, is a bit of a story. That's where I thought I'd start this. Um, George, when I first met you, you were a spring carver. Uh, and then I know you've obviously switched to autumn and now you've switched to autumn with robots. Um I thought I know Matt's been grazing a far longer, but I thought with yourself, what's your story? Why did you why that change of policy, I guess, spring to autumn, but more particularly autumn to robots?

George Dalton:

Yeah, so um we when I came back to the farm in 2008, we were all year-round carving actually, um, which was fine, but we found we were doing an awful lot of work to not make a massive amount of money. Um, and at the time the farm needed quite a bit of money spent on it in terms of uh the MVZs had just come in, slurry storage, um, we didn't have that much cubicle housing. And so uh after a few years of being back, my take on that was to avoid a lot of the expenditure that I now have gone on to do. But uh we went spring carving and I've done 10 years of spring carver, um, which was really good. Um we had some very good years like that. So that is outwintering cattle on kale and turnips in the winter time.

Andrew Jones:

Well, where where your farm is, because it's what 20 minutes outside from where I live. It is, yeah. It's ideal for some outwintering, isn't it?

George Dalton:

Exactly. The farm's got some chalk downland on the top, the dairy's then on some clay soil over chalk, um, where's the farm split by the A30 road going through the middle of it, and then some lighter green sandy soil on the northern side. Uh so we would yeah, outwinter um calves, heifers, and cows outside on kale turnips, bale silage, um, some straw, and then uh yeah, milk on the grazing platform for the the rest of the year. And so and that was fine. The the key bit that I probably had not researched quite well enough is that the well, the the cow numbers grew a bit and I was essentially overstocked on my grazing platform. So you referred to where we are, we're kind of on slightly on the edge of dairy arable country here. So whilst round the dairy does have some good grass growing uh ground, uh we were just suffering from dry summers, wet winters, and um so that that that was the first lever is that I found I was feeding lots of cows silage to fairly fresh spring carvers. Um and yeah, you you ended up with some of the costs of an autumn carver, despite being with only the output of a spring carver. Um the other driver for change probably was milk contract. So my milk comes uh only 10 minutes up the road to BV Dairy in Shaftesbury, and which is now part of the first milk group. Um and their contract just shifted a bit to you know penalise the spring milk a bit more, incentivise the autumn. So we had some formulas where we were having to supply X amount of milk up to the end of December. So again, I was faced with feeding stale spring carvers right up to Christmas and New Year time. Um so all of that was fine, but I was slightly on a treadmill of that I could never quite achieve the best results or or KPIs as a spring carver. Um and so yeah, we're lucky enough to own the farm as well, and I I felt that it was worthy of us investing to try and modernise it for the future. The options at that time generally were to give up and get out of daring completely immediately, which um we we didn't want to do, um, you know, continue for X number of years with an older setup, um, but sort of knowing that that was perhaps still round the corner, or stick with it and spend some money. So I started a plan to essentially just look at how I could fit cubicles into existing sheds. Um and that kind of that process organically grew into right how we then dealing with the slurry. Um, so that was you know more concrete and slurry channels, and I was quite keen on separating the slurry at that point, so that put me down that route. And then um I wanted I was keen to make sure I knew where we could build another parlour if I ever wanted to.

Andrew Jones:

Um you've got to put build it into plan, haven't you?

George Dalton:

Exactly. So I did I did have some some help with that from Ivor Davy of Cowplan. He helped do some drawings, and actually it was him who first said to me, I think on our very first meeting, have I ever considered robots? And I said, absolutely not, dismissed it immediately because it was so far away from what I was doing at the time.

Andrew Jones:

Well, because robots are traditionally seen as house 365, high input, high output, and your system just was not that. Exactly.

George Dalton:

Um, and so I did dismiss it, but and it was quite a long process. I'm quite a slow burner with the the thinking and planning of of what we were going to do. I was very aware that it was a once-in-a-lifetime type investment. Um and so by after talking to him for I don't know, a year and a half or something, prior to COVID and the energy crisis, all we ever talked about was labour and staff issues on farms, and it just got my mind thinking to you know the long term there, and that um it felt like it was worthy of me researching the robot route. Um, and so essentially that's what I did. Um, at the time I went with a discussion group to Matthews farm uh and visited that, and I actually remember it being a lovely spring day, and it was an absolutely fantastic sort of PR selling point for dairy farming because there was cows everywhere. Um, very free range. Um, and you obviously did a very good job on the day because I came away thinking just something in my brain thought, I reckon I can do this at home. Um I think I did another general grazing open day with with Lely, and then following that I also did uh well with Matthew a trip to Ireland to look round farms there. And so that process is probably what then cemented the idea of yes, I can make this work.

Andrew Jones:

So your the first step really changing from spring to autumn is more to do with environmental conditions or or to make better use of what you had on the farm.

George Dalton:

Yes, and also financial. I wouldn't be doing it unless we thought we could make more money as an autumn than a spring carver. I felt I had the cow type to do it. We were always uh a slightly bigger cow than the the real spring carving guys. Um and so, yes, it felt like it was a far better fit for the physical attributes of the farm.

Sarah Bolt:

So I'm really keen to um to sort of delve into some of um what you're talking about, sort of setting your strategy. I think that that's something that perhaps dairy farmers don't always find the time to do. And how did you firstly make the time to do that and then actually go about thinking about how you're gonna set your strategy to actually try and make it work? And I'm gonna add another one on the end there quickly, as to um sort of some of those KPIs that you were monitoring in order to sort of perhaps help make those strategic decisions.

George Dalton:

I think finding the time is just a being driven one, is in if you you you I knew I had to do something, yeah. Uh, and so you you just make time for that sort of thing. Um, that's why it probably took so long, is because I I I like to think about it for a long time. So yeah, life's busy enough on a dairy farm anyway. So um just sort of fitting that in and around the the day-to-day workload was was what we did. Um KPI-wise, um, I mean I've sort of touched on it, but it it was grass growth really. You know, we we'd we'd been an average 10 to 11 ton uh uh of dry matter grass growing type farm about to sort of 14, but we also have had years as low as seven or eight, and um those years were hurting a bit. So those were the the sort of drivers for change, I suppose.

Andrew Jones:

Interestingly, you're not the only farm I know that's gone spring to autumn for that reason. They were farms that dry up when it does go dry, and we have had drier years the last few years, and so they've switched like yourself from spring to autumn for that very reason because otherwise they were fit spending too much time late spring summer feeding when the whole point of that system is not to be feeding, so it's just interesting. Then obviously, you've then made the next step and gone, hey, we're gonna go robots as well.

Sarah Bolt:

I'm guessing, Matt, does some of that sort of grass growth come into some of your decisions from going to the split block?

Matthew Senior:

All of it. So every farm I find, and we've I would say majority of us have been there, every farm has a sweet spot. You've got to go through the pain, you've got to go over that sweet spot before you realise where it actually is.

Sarah Bolt:

I've heard that so many times, and I love that sort of that analogy.

Matthew Senior:

For us at home, we overdid it when we were milking 400 spring carvers. So we were spring carving originally, milk through standard herringbone parlour, five, six members of staff. Um, and again, we overstepped that sweet spot, a bit like George.

Andrew Jones:

You base it on a good year, don't you? You go, Oh, we can do it, we've got a good year. So you go, you push it, push it, push it, and then when you have that bad year, it suddenly kicks you. Yeah.

Sarah Bolt:

But I think it's the sign of a good dairy farm because if you haven't gone over it, you don't know where the boundary is.

Matthew Senior:

No, exactly. And it's the same with the feed space in in when you're t you're feeding on the yard, um you pull out 10, 15 cows, but your milk stays the same because you've automatically given the existing ones more more space to roam and and do what they want to do. So that was our sort of and then over time um staff exactly the same. Uh and then alongside some of the things we also have another sideline that we get to do, although we were 100% spring carving. Um we were processing a percentage of our own milk. We needed milk all year round. Um and that sort of led us on to having sort of 15-20% in milk through the winter period when the majority were dry. Again, combined with staff, and very much a sort of a unique, easy, simple layout, um, where everything just flows. And again, we 14 years ago, I think it was we had Ivor Davy out, and he did an aerial plan of the farm, with the buildings, and we did a time-in-motion process and just the little things um so get all your roofs facing the same way, the bridges, if you can future proof it for solar panels, etc., so that they're lying in the correct way. Scraping all in straight lines, cows with no dead ends in the passages. Once you start that sort of system, it it does evolve and it does you do get there.

Sarah Bolt:

And it makes it easier to grow, doesn't it? Sort of ventilation, all of those sorts of things just work so much better once you've uh but it's time management as well.

Andrew Jones:

But so taking a step back, man, for you, when did the robot journey start for you? Because obviously, so you you were spring carving in a conventional parlour at that time.

Matthew Senior:

Yeah, so me, uh so we're year seven on robots at home. Um it probably started nine years ago for me on a discussion group visit to Ireland. Um I'd been so in the UK, majority of uh uh robot systems are fully housed. Uh I admit uh my background was a high-input sort of system, but over the years we've sort of gone the route we have, which I thoroughly enjoy. Um and it was just I always wanted to graze and I had never seen a grazing system until we went to Ireland and and it it just evolved from there really, and then we visited over a period of two years. I visited 14 different farms and then we could sit down at a time then when we decided to go to robots um we had a job advert get out. We were looking for a herd person to assist us. Um and the same problem adverts now, it's like a holiday brochure. Who's got the best house, who's got the best facilities? Um and we didn't really fall into any of those. And twice in a row it happened. We did accepted, given offered somebody the opportunity. Um ten days before they're supposed to start, they decided that something else had happened, and that happened twice in a row. Um always the same at home. My wife and I, we just roll our sleeves up and we'll just carry on. So yeah, we were going into longer days, etc. And it just well we had to had to do something. And again, it was like um everybody wants a house with a job, but we don't have accommodation on the farm to supply, so we were renting accommodation. So when you put that package together, you're looking at quite a reasonable financial package. Um and then when we just had Lelly from Ireland come out and they said, Well, yes, it would work in our system, and then we've just evolved from there, really.

Andrew Jones:

Um as you say, these days it's not just it used to be if you got a house, you had you you could get somebody, but it's not now, is it? It's it's facilities and everything that go with it. Yeah, definitely, definitely.

Matthew Senior:

So but also things have changed, so we can't keep doing what the other generation did just because the father did it or grandfather did it. The agricultural industry is a lovely industry to work in, and it's so diverse, but being stuck in a milking parlour for three, four hours each end of the day is not really going to attract the right attract people into an industry. Um so this is where for us, especially the robots, it it's just so flexible.

Andrew Jones:

But that's something with the whole industry though, isn't it? As you say we can't do it yet. I know clients that have got parlours that are older than me and they're still milking in them. And it it there's this whole re broad range within agricultural where you are in terms of you have the latest, greatest, whether it's robots or whatever it happens to be, or you're still milking, usually in a family, in a parlour that's older than me, and it's like, well, it it does the job, we just keep going with it. And that's just an example, but there's so many different things there in between in terms of uptake of different levels of technology and and everything else.

George Dalton:

That's the key though, isn't it? Is that everyone lots of people do things differently, um, but it's whatever works for that family, that farm. Yeah. Um, and neither of them are right or wrong.

Sarah Bolt:

And I think what's what's interesting um for both of you that you actually looked at what your supply needed. So with you, Matt, it was actually your your direct supply. And with you, uh with you, George, it was actually looking at what the dairy required of you as well. So it's actually not just perhaps what motive motivated you, but it's actually what was right for your client base as well. I think that that's really, really important.

Andrew Jones:

But going back, so Matt, you said, was it seven years you've had them at home now? Yeah. I'm guessing there's been some painful lessons along the way.

Matthew Senior:

In the early days, we started up literally at COVID. Um, so that was a bit painful uh because we weren't allowed to have the physical uh support the people on farming. Um we had Zoom calls, but you can't go, it's hard showing somebody grazing on a zoom call.

Andrew Jones:

Although they can't exactly help you push the cows and the robot either, can they?

Matthew Senior:

And it was just uh a little bit because over here we're so used to house systems and people have the mentality of you have a robot, yes, you will increase your yield per cow, but you also increase the number of the number of visits that that cow gets. So they have a um they like to see an average of three milkings a day. The way that the robot system works or the computer side of the system, um that to me it's like you've got a piece of cake and it's all done on your average number of uh visits, uh portion of cake that is allocated to each visit. Um those little settings we struggled with in the early days because we have a um a crossbred type cow. Um average live weight is four, well, an hour is four hundred and fifty kilos just over. Um when we started it was actually closest to four or thirty kilos, so a smallish cow. Um we weren't doing those three visits a day. You know, we we're quite happy on an average of two visits a day. Um because my thinking was I always I wanted to match what I was doing through the parlour before. Anything above that is in increasing yield, which was hopefully a bonus, but more importantly, that bonus had to come with no extra extra feed or co or concentrate. It was coming from extra forage eaten or grown. So yeah.

Andrew Jones:

So so what are what are your concentrate levels?

Matthew Senior:

Um so concentrate levels, so we always originally go back to in 2019 we were milking 400 cows, uh, very simple, twice a day. Uh averaging um just under 5,000, so it was about 4,800 litres a cow uh on 900 kilos of concentrate across an annual basis. Um on a solid basis of 4.9 fat and 3.87, 3.8 protein on an average. Uh so we wanted something to match what we were doing to that. Now we are 330 cows on average, or just under 330 cows total. Uh this particular year we because of the drought, we uh have just pushed up to that 1.82 tonne of concentrate, but that's mainly on drought. Uh we have twist we're producing um just a short of 1.9 trillion litres, so we're just under that six thousand litre ticket. So we've put a thousand litres per cow on with not much more concentrate. Less than point three, yeah. So my average is 0.25 for this year. We're normally under the 0.2.

Andrew Jones:

Fantastic. Definitely, definitely, definitely. Um, so going back to yourself, George, you obviously went to Ireland. I think I might have bumped into you somewhere along the lines because our kids were at school together, weren't they? Uh, and you'd sort of said, Oh, I've been to Ireland, and they they can do it over there, and they've got lots, and you were quite um enthusiastic about the idea, but I think obviously you you'd sat down and uh must have done some more with Matt. But you once you made the decision, how where did it go from there? Was it obviously getting Matt involved more, or because you obviously you had a fairly extensive grazing system already set up? Has there been many changes to that?

George Dalton:

Yeah, so I think um, well, just to touch on the the decision to change is interesting because we then went on once I was sold with the sort of practicalities or outside idea of it. Um you obviously go home and do a few numbers and do a bit of a business plan. And um quite a classic example as we sat down uh in a meeting with our accountant and he said, Right, well, if you want to do that, we better sell all the cows and we better have some big high-yielding Holsteins. And you know, that's the stereotype. Because that's all he'd see. Maybe not, you know, a a um a person at the forefront or the the um you know the front of the the coal face of farming, but um that was the perception, and um that reaction, you know, made me laugh, but probably made me more determined to say, actually, hang on, I don't think that is the case. Um and actually, you know, uh it's been great meeting Matt and Coral because they were um they've been really helpful, but were probably the most prominent people that I knew that were grazing with robots here. Um, and even now there's a few other farms, but it isn't commonplace at all. Whereas that trip to Ireland and seeing what the industry does there, they genuinely couldn't sell the robots quick enough, obviously smaller farms, but a lot of it was one or two robot setups um with 100, 120 cows. Um and so where I was getting quite a lot of kickback in this country of that actually this can't be done, to go there and just see it be very commonplace kind of gave me the confidence to say actually this can be done here. Um, so so that that was that side of it. Um, yeah, so the grazing side of it I already knew because we'd been spring carving for 10 years, my cows were already grazing a lot. Um just to put some of the figures in perspective, so my cows would be bigger than Matt's, we're a kind of 570 kilo live weight cow. Um as a spring carver, we were doing about five and a half thousand litres. Um, but because of the overstocking meant we were often feeding 1.1, 1.2 tonnes of concentrate. Um and so fast forward then as a we did one season in the parlour uh as an autumn carver, and the yields rose to about 7,000 litres. Fast forward to now is that we're 8,100, and I'm feeding just under two tons of concentrate, and that's mostly obviously the the the cake going through the robots. We include a little bit of rape meal that we mix in with maize um that's outside, but there's no uh there's no diet feeder or TMR mix going in, um, and that includes all the dry cow rolls and other stuff. So um, and that's and so then milk qualities at the moment uh rolling average would be sort of 4.65 and 3.65 proteins, something like that. So um they're obviously back a bit, but that's because we've got more yield. Um I would put probably over a thousand litres of the yield increase down to the robots. And the comparison there is that we for those litres it felt like we weren't feeding any more cake, we were just being able to target it. There's a the computer has a a feed table system that um either the the you know Layle Yovel help you set up at the start, but actually after that it is just your decisions with nutritionist, you know, Matthew, whoever help just you know, basing your decisions on what how much you want to feed for what milk you get. Um but it just means you can target um target that food. So, you know, link back to the visits mindset that some cows can milk five times a day, but the minimum's one. There'll be some cows that um you know obviously depends on stage of lactation, but some cows will will milk three or four times a day, and some will be on one and a half, you know. But neither's uh right or wrong, and obviously the lower yielding ones give more solids, so they can be equally as profitable. Um in terms of the grazing, we already had a track infrastructure set up. I guess we'll go on to talk about it, but uh obviously the the principle of the grazing is the ABC grazing, so that's three times a day uh grazing of of different areas of the farm. Um so actually that's probably where where Matthew was very helpful in that that's the bit that I couldn't get my head around. We need although I knew grazing, which I just needed to know how that flow was going to work around the farm. Um so actually, despite being in with or milking with the robots for just over two years, I we we we have two cow tracks, an east and westerly one, and we just alternate between the two but split the three grazings between the two. That's worked so far. We we have small sections of routes that get me to the the third grazing without having to to adapt what you do. But the the principle really is that the other side of the grazeway gate, which is the gate that all the cows have to exit out through of, um there's four routes, one's going to return them to the yard, the other three are the A, B, and the C. And after that, essentially it's just down to your track and infrastructure network, and everything's done with a bungee or electric fence.

Andrew Jones:

So you've not really made any massive changes in terms of your infrastructure?

George Dalton:

Not not huge, no. Um I I probably have felt like smaller paddocks would be more useful. Um, you know, you're you're fairly familiar with my setup, but I we where we were, well, it wasn't arable, but they were there, it's it's one big flat grazing block, so I managed to split mine up when we were spring carving into two hectare or five acre paddocks.

Andrew Jones:

It would have been the right size for the for the herd size, but of course you're not grazing herd-wise now, are you?

George Dalton:

So I mean, I don't know what Matt thinks. My my only comment is where you have three fences set up, it's taking a little bit longer to get in and out of a paddock, and that's where back fencing and things like that has its role to play. I don't do much of that. I probably I probably should do more. But um, yeah.

Sarah Bolt:

So, Matt, for those that aren't familiar with the ABC grazing, can you perhaps talk us through why it's important and sort of that uh how it works really with the robots?

Matthew Senior:

Yeah, so everybody's misconception with robots is that the cow has to well, so the cow comes to the robot to be milked, that's one main process. But everybody thinks that the cow comes back for and has to be fed concentrate. That's not the fact. With the grazing, it is split ABC, and we work on um so every eight hours the gate will change automatically to whichever time of day or direction you want. Um, and we work on a principle of the dry matter intake that your cow is allocated or eating, and we split, so for me, I think for George, is A is we call it breakfast, dinner and tea. Um so from 2 a.m. to 10am, the gate opens and the cows will be allocated their A grazing, which would be 40% of their dry matter intake. And then from 10am to 6 pm, they'd go off in a different direction to B, which would be another 40% of their allocation, and then C from 6 pm to 2 a.m. is their 20% of the allocation. And the research has shown that a cow eats that little bit less at night, but also the encouragement is she's only been allocated 20%, so she gets up till 2 a.m. come back to the robot, and she knows that when she comes back to the robot after 2 a.m. she's gonna go to a fresh piece of allocation of grass as well.

Andrew Jones:

So the driver for the driver for her is knowing she's gonna get that fresh grass.

Matthew Senior:

She's gonna get that fresh grass every time.

Sarah Bolt:

It's not the sweeties in the parlour.

Matthew Senior:

No, it's not. So and again with the feet to yield, we you can be as as generous or as tight on the cow as you wish. Do not get your cake rep to set your feet to yield. Um so for us, I have an allocation. So anything giving less than 15 kilos of milk doesn't get any cake. The driver is food outside.

Andrew Jones:

Yeah, I was gonna ask that because I know my experience uh with a client that was robots and got out of robots, um, we would I was trying to cut the cake back, and if I went below two and a half kilos, uh they'd complain that the fetch list got no, they weren't grazing, but the fetch list got too got higher and they were having to fetch more cows. But you're finding you can feed the lower ones zero cake.

Matthew Senior:

Zero cake. Um if you want to, you can have a liquid feed source, um, so molasses, um, and that can be watered down, so it's just tricks the keeps them happy, so they're licking something when they're there. Um but we the question I would ask in that scenario, if they're collect what stage of lactation is that cow in? Late lactation. Late lactation. So why do you expect a late lactation cow that's maybe only giving 20 litres of milk or less to come in for three visits a day? It's not gonna happen, is it?

Andrew Jones:

Because they're not eating, they're big and full and in should be in calf, heavy in calf, they've not got a lot of milk, there's not got the driver for them. It's now their time to sort of start to ease back a little bit, isn't it?

Matthew Senior:

So this this is where I in my sort of system is it is the best way to free range steering. It is up you've got to trust the cow naturally, but it's up to the cow to do as much or as little as she wants. Um, but like George said, the later lactation cows that have a higher solids, we're all paid on solids, so that's a benefit to us. Um yeah, but it's just I I'm happy with two milk averaging two milkings a day.

Andrew Jones:

But you you also, I mean, I'll say I I have been to a farm because we did a cow signals course be two years ago now, I think it was. And uh I can't remember it was it you had no, you weren't grazing that, but you had been grazing, was it January or something? Yeah, I think it was you're happy that if if the the conditions are right, you just put them out and graze.

Matthew Senior:

They can go out and graze, yeah. Because at the end of the day, grazegrass is the cheapest food in front of them. Um, we soon add costs by making silage, etc. So yeah, that's the cheapest.

Sarah Bolt:

So talking of silage, um George, I'm really keen to hear a little bit more about your self-feed. Is it something that you were doing before you had the robots, or is that again something new you've had to master?

George Dalton:

Oh, it's yes, another thing that I've had to learn actually. Um so again, when part of that big sort of building plan and and uh future proofing design, I knew I wanted to try and feed the cows cheaply, but I knew I'd already decided that the autumn profile was going to be the best fit for the farm. Um, we do have an old Ford tractor and an old Keenan feeder that we were using, but the reality was that if I was going to have a feed fence and be mixing up a TMR that they would need replacing, um that ties you to a person doing that, it needs the machinery to work and start and all that kind of thing. So um I had a friend who was very into self-feed, and we often joked that you know, could you we just need the robot to milk the cow and the self cow to eat its own silage on the self feed? Uh, you know, that's it. What else can there be to do? In reality, there is still quite a bit to do. Um, but it's probably much like the robots, it's just a slightly tweak to your skill set to learn something a little bit different. So um, yeah, so we put in a a A 50 meter wide and 35 meter deep tarmac pad that's got some Lego blocks around the side. Um we layer in first cut silage from the left hand side, some second cut from the right hand side, and then um that's the easy bit. The hard bit is in the autumn, we then unsheet the whole lot, which is an absolute pig of a job, and then put maize all over the top of it. Um because of the green sandy soil, the maize does grow quite well on the farm, so I was always keen to keep that in there, and then it was probably learning from some other discussion group friends about incorporating rap meal into that. It's a very crude, but we just tip a bucket load on each trailer that comes in. Um, and so far I've had a good go at that. Um I'm still very much finding my way with the self feed. We um uh because the the cows are all wearing a collar that has um the the responder on it for the robot, it has a collar weight below their neck, which is to keep it all the right way up. Uh that proved an extra challenge to get them to train to eat over the wire. Any cow will eat under a wire, but getting them to eat over it is uh was a bit harder. So there's all the K Cars Law sort of rules to follow with uh heights of wire, how far out the wire should be, that kind of thing. And we've got some bits of blue pipe and stick with that kind of thing on for people to follow. Um, but essentially, if you follow that with some tweaks, then we have found the wire just needs to be a little bit closer and a little bit lower just to avoid the the colour weight catching. Um yeah, we've got on with them self-feeding. So last year to to um put it in perspective, we well, they've they've had access to a self-feed clamp for three autumns. However, last year we were still mixing, we were taking some grabs off the top and mixing it and putting it in racks. Uh this year we've done the whole season with them just eating it out of the clamp.

Sarah Bolt:

So you've answered uh my my next question there. I was going to ask you, does it follow the K. Carlslaw sort of uh ethos? And obviously it does. For those people that are listening that don't perhaps know of uh K. Carl's Law, prominent southeast and uh a sort of a system um followed by many autumn block harvers self-feeding in uh in the south east. Yes, as well. And sort of, am I correct in thinking sort of silage pit height sort of about five foot max?

George Dalton:

Yeah, you could go a little a little bit taller than that, but um exactly. It's all about you know how how uh high up your cow can can reach to eat sensibly. Uh we we use a prong to knock down the top edges if it if there's a bit of an overhang or anything like that. Um so that there's a bit more physicality to the job, you know, which actually um it's it's much like the robots, it does 90% of the work for you, but the 10% of the work you're doing you still have to think about and get right and make sure there's no waste going in there, that the wire's right, otherwise you have hungry cows or get it wrong too close, and it's there's too much wastage and food on the floor.

Andrew Jones:

But I I've got to be honest, I didn't even know there was a law because and it's interesting you say the practicalities of having that weight, because that's not something I'd even thought of. What I was gonna say was isn't it funny how we all used to self-feed? Because I definitely remember my father in the late 70s, everything was self-feed silage, and then we all we've all got away.

Sarah Bolt:

We didn't have these big machines.

Andrew Jones:

Well, no, yeah, we've all we've all gone away from it, and then people are going because I I know as you say, there are other people probably think the same people as you say that they add rape to their maize to uh get the protein up and it works for them and they do a good job, and it's obviously you know you're finding the same. And you say it's you're not physically, but what you do have to do, you just have to think about those little little bits that make the difference. That's what makes the difference, isn't there?

George Dalton:

Yeah, and um I was also gonna just touch on when Matthew's talking about um like the fetch list for cows, it's quite a common phrase that uh is talked about or associated with robots, and especially on the housed herds. So you I you probably agree, it feels like there's a big focus for staff on the farm to constantly be collecting cows, whereas probably for both of our types of cows, we're less worried about how often they they milk. So actually, um for me, I have to do quite a bit of that at carving time, training heifers, that sort of thing. You know, it it stands to reason. But actually, after that, if you get the balance of cow numbers right for the robots and enough free time on the robots to give them space to visit, they just get on with it. Um, and then during the grazing season, all of that's done for you via the Grazeway gate. Because those cows can only get back out via it. Um they you know they have to be milked if they need to be milked, but also crucially, late lactation, they might not even need milking. So there's times when the cows will walk up and try the gate because, as Matt pointed out earlier, they're more interested in the fresh bite of grass. So that's how you get that movement round the farm without a massive amount of work, and all our job really is to stay ahead of the cow's food with electric fences.

Andrew Jones:

So, apart from AB at carving, do either of you do any fetching of cows at all?

Matthew Senior:

Like just once a day in the morning to make sure the paddocks are clear or well, it's sort of a standard um so for me, um, we have when we're grazing, it's ABC. So to give you an idea, so my day starts not much before 7.30. Um, if I'm out before 7.30 in the morning, that's normally because I've got something else happening during the day. But I would nip out um first thing in the morning and go down to what I call the bee fences. So if you think uh if you remember the bee access to bee grazing, the last cow had access at 6 pm. So when I go out at 7:30, 8 o'clock in the morning down to B, hopefully, if my grazing allocations are all correct, there'll be no cows there. So they've done that themselves. If there is, I will just send them on their way, move the fence for then at 10am break, um, follow those cows back to the robot. I would then walk away from those cows because the only way back out to any grazing is through the robot again before they're allowed out through the grazeway gate. So that job's done. For me as well, normally on my way back, I would see how many cows are left in their C grazing. So bearing in mind that last cow had access there at 2 a.m. ready for when A opened up. Hopefully, there'd be not many cows in there. I would normally move clear the that paddock and move that fence. So I do two fences 40 minutes in the morning. That technically is me done. So the coral then would do the washing around the robots and change the filters. Unless we're serving or something like that, or carving, that is me done for the day. And then in the late afternoon, if I say any time after 5 o'clock, I would nip down to A. Uh again, if my allocations have been correct, there'll be no cows down there. I would move that fence, so that's the fence is ready for 2am. Again, that's and wash around the robots in the afternoon twice a day is what we do. Uh that's that is it. Dairy farming sound like it's an easy life. It it is, but it it's so much more flexible with the robots now. Um and like where we used to be five or six full-time on the dairy, there's actually now only two of us. But it's two of us, and we can have time away during the day. So it's it's nothing for me to or for Coral and myself to we've knit down to the Cornwall show for the day, done the fences early in the morning, we've left the farm at seven o'clock, and we're nine times out of ten. If we're back when it's dark, it's not the end of the world. And it's literally half an hour to do the jobs. But that's the easy side of it. We always find jobs to do. You've got young stock, etc. But it gives you more time to focus on those other little jobs.

Andrew Jones:

Um, George, you mentioned it carving, but any other time do you similar to Matt or Yeah, pretty similar.

George Dalton:

Um, probably worth touching on is it it takes a bit of time for the cows to spread out and get that that moving as a herd uh mentality out of them. And so I'm not quite as far along that journey as Matthew is. Um I I often joke as the advice you would have given me last, you know, my first year when I was ringing saying, Oh, what do I do? We've got you know lots of cows here in the wrong place. Every time you say, Go and have a cup of tea. And I, you know, and I really struggled with it. I was like, how can I do that? They're all bunched up here, they're in the wrong place, whatever. Um and first year that was impossible. Second year, you and it is a mindset thing, I'm absolutely fine with that. You nine times out of ten, you can sort you they sort themselves out just given time. So um it takes a minute or two to uh for them to spread out. Don't forget they've spent years being sort of called at you know 5 a.m. in the morning and three or four in the afternoon. Um so that takes a bit of time to get used to. Um and yeah, I think the other thing is never for my experience is never in my wildest dreams did I think when we set the gate going to let them out for grazing, would I uh struggle to get them to come back in? So I I was I was terrified that as I set that gate going, they'd had all winter in at this point that I wouldn't see a cow ever again because they like the sunshine and the green grass outside. And um, if I'm honest, my biggest issue during that first year was the the grouping of them all coming back at once. So that that's the thing to remember is four robots milking four cows, you're at a hundred percent capacity immediately, and it's a slow job. So that that was slightly strange to get used to at the start.

Andrew Jones:

Well, I was gonna say, should we rephrase that? That maybe the problem in the first year wasn't the cows, it was you.

George Dalton:

100%.

Andrew Jones:

A lot a lot of it's cliche. Because we're all exact we all expect, as you say, yeah, we all expect that. Now, as we're talking grazing, I've got to ask, what kind of covers do you normally go in at and what are your residuals like?

Matthew Senior:

Um, for me, everything is the same as when we were grazing through the parlour. So um it the only difference is I've got the grazing platform is split into three blocks. So I could say I've got three different wedges, um, but it's all the same principles between that 2800, 3000 grazing cover, and for me, I am adamant that every grazing in the first the first three or four grazings in the spring and early summer has to come down to that 1500 kilos, 1500, 1600, because that is where you maintain your quality for the rest of the season. Those are the little bits that most people get wrong. Um but if you can maintain those, all the principles are the same. It's good quality grass.

Andrew Jones:

How do you find as we've not got that herd coming in at once? I was gonna say, how do you find maybe a cow that comes in towards the end and there isn't the nicest grass there? Yeah, how do you find they cope with it? Or do are are they grazing it down from that, I don't know, let's say 18 to 15, like you want, or is that where you maybe have a little bit of a struggle?

Matthew Senior:

Um you get round that because if you think if you're only like us, we're only averaging two, 2.3 visits a day. So, like I said, it's breakfast, dinner, and tea. Some of those cows, so that last cow into A at 10am, nine times out of ten, she's the first cow in C, and vice versa. So she could be the last cow into C, but the first cow into B. Um they do make it up, and that's when you George, you're smiling.

George Dalton:

Oh, I'm I'm grinning because it just, you know, to when it's new to you, everyone's thinking I can't even remember A, B, and C. Um, me being a few years in, you completely get that now. Some cows skip a grazing again, don't worry about it. You know, um the the mentality is to be a bit more relaxed about it, and you you soon know if the cows are hungry or you haven't got it right. You know, the the the general principle is if that there isn't enough allocated, they'll all be back looking for the neck next feed. And if you've given them way too much, you might struggle to get them back and you've got to go and get them. I've learnt all those bits the hard way in my first few years, and exactly what Matt Matt said, you know, the the grazing principles are exactly the same, you know, decent grazing covers, try and get them to graze it out as best you can.

Andrew Jones:

So you're both still aiming for, as you'd say, 28 to 3,000 and come out 15, 16. Yeah. And so nothing's changed in that regard.

Matthew Senior:

The only thing you need to know is have a good idea of it's always I was always taught, um, you've got to measure it to monitor it. If you don't measure it, you can't monitor it. Guesswork some people manage by, but I can't. Um so by just measuring that little bit, you do this quick figures. Uh yes, there is access to AgriNet and other computer programs, but I'm still a little bit old-fashioned. I like to know quickly write it down in my head. Um and you just work out, and like George said, you soon know if you've under-allocated because there'll be more will come back to the yard, or there'll be more in your collect list if you've overallocated. But the system is yeah, we run A B C, but you could run an A B with if you want to buffer feed, C back indoors, um, buffer feeding on silage. And the flexibility in the spring and the autumn is still the same principles where the main thing is to get into your head, the cows are never shut into a paddock, they have always have free access and free range. Um once you've got that, so yes, it looks funny. So you might have 10 or 20 cows mingling around the yard or the robots milking. There'll probably be 30 or 40 cows on a laneway track, and the rest of the another proportion of cows could be in B or A, but they're not always in one huddle or one bunch. So in the spring we make and the autumn we make far less mess now and are able to graze longer and better than when we had the whole herd as on on a be because it's it's a cow or two, not a couple hundred in one. Yeah, so in through the gateway, it's just a little line of cows, not all of them huddling.

Andrew Jones:

You mentioned some people C might be buffering. I was gonna say how I believe there are some people that are grazing, but that's maybe if they're carving all year round, they might keep those fresh cows in to buffer. You've got systems like that that you're consulting on.

Matthew Senior:

Yeah, so we we help systems like that. Um it it can be a little bit more difficult because it's um cows become lazy, so they'll always go to the one place that is easiest for food. But once they know that you've got quality grazed grass outside, they they will be pretty good. Yeah. But you've got so much many options. So you you know, you like your first your cows in the first 50 days of lactation, they could be separated to a separate area for feeding, and then the rest of the cows could be going out.

Andrew Jones:

And that's robots bring that flexibility, don't they?

Sarah Bolt:

And I think we've been on a really big learning curve sort of in the last 10-12 years, really, with grazing with robots, because it used to be loafing with robots, really, didn't it, if we're if we're brutally honest. But cows would have access outside, but they'd probably just be mooching around rather than actually grazing.

Matthew Senior:

Yeah, yeah, there is there is that. Yeah. But it the other thing with the robots is more and more milk buyers want more detail of what we're doing, and with the robots, you can quickly get that information. Like we are milk recording every day, so our fat, protein, and cell count and milk yield of every cow is done every day. We never liked milk recording in our previous system. Um, it was always something that if we could avoid it, we did, but it was a necessity. But now it's all done and we don't even know it's done. We just press the button and I can get the results.

Andrew Jones:

You probably spend more time looking at the results than you do actually doing.

Matthew Senior:

You you do. And that is the first thing. Like George said, go and have like joked about going and have a cup of tea. But the first thing we do, we have the information is on our phone. There's cameras all around the yard, so we've got access to cameras on our phone. I can have a cup of tea, get up in the morning, have a cup of tea, um, scroll through the phone, you quickly see what's priority. Um and then you can make your day from from there.

George Dalton:

The other thing to touch on the computer or phone thing is uh or a common question I'm oft often asked is do you spend your life looking at it? And actually, you you don't. It's not that you're sat in a room just looking at that and not looking at the cows, so we're back on the skill, what skill sets needed to run farms like this, but the the software is designed to give you a very quick overview of what's going on in your farm. So um, and that comes from that that a cow wearing a collar, so that's you know, obviously can happen in a parlour as well as a robot, but um for me especially the the move to collars, regardless of how they're milked, has provided just an unbelievably fascinating level of data uh about how they move, how many minutes of eating, rumination, all that sort of thing? Combine that with then the tech that the robot can do, um, you know, it's a fantastic way to be able to analyse the health traits of the cows that we look after.

Sarah Bolt:

So obviously, all of this technology provides a lot of data. Um, how do you decide which is the important bits to look at and the less important bits to look at?

George Dalton:

I mean, that for for me that still comes with uh you know good human intervention. And you you you quickly learn, uh, you quickly learn two things. One, what's important on the computer reports to look at, uh, and you also quickly learn about your cows as to which which ones are the important ones to look at. And so that would be my take on that.

Matthew Senior:

Yeah. So on the Lely Horizon uh program that we're used to, um You have a health report um which there's KPIs and then if it falls below a certain figure that triggers the animal to come onto the health report, it's done in the form of a percentage and then you can decide so for me um many once they see a cow on the health report, you've got to get that cow. But for me, once she's over 65-70%, that's when I would start looking at her because it it might just flag up a little high cell count. Well, 99% of the time that cow was self-cure, and you don't have to touch touch her. So for us on that side of it, we've gone our antibiotic usage is um only three cows out of every 100 have had antibiotic applications. Um yes, we have used more pain relief over the time, but that's good. And then it works the same way with your you have a um activity or heat in heat report. Again, so the cows all automatically get triggered on there. And depending on how you have your robots or separation areas set up, so our grazeway gate is set through May and June when we're actually serving the spring carved cows. Anything any animal that comes on the heat report automatically gets segregated to the C paddock, which is the closest paddock, and I just go out once a day, clear that paddock, AI them, and then take them off their place, and then they join the rest of the herd. So you're not really hunting around for cows. Yes, we do hunt around for cows when they're on the yard, but not very funny. You actually do need something to do in the winter. Um so yeah, and hunting around for a 10, five or ten cows doesn't actually take long because we've got areas like everybody, they congregate in that area. And if you've got a system of gates, like I've commented to George today, um, it's you can never have enough gates so that one person could open a gate and the cows just flow. So it it yeah, it is such a flexible and easy system.

Sarah Bolt:

So the Lely Horizon program does it to a certain extent, and then you've refined it for your grazing system further, and and George has had the pleasure of learning from what you've you've learned. Yeah.

Andrew Jones:

Well, I'm looking at the time, and it's time we sort of draw this to a close. But it's been it's been a really good conversation with both of you. But like usual, I guess any last words of wisdom. Um, George, start with yourself.

George Dalton:

Um, no, only that I've sort of really enjoyed the journey I've been on to get to where I have. It's meant I've uh met lots of lovely people, including Matt, but also um one of the biggest things for me is it's generated a lot of outside interest to what I'm doing on farm because it is a little bit different. And so I've really enjoyed hosting other farmers at the start, was just people being nosy, looking over the hedge, wanting to see what I was building or what I was doing. Um, but fast forward, that's been discussion groups and school visits and things like that, which um we just wouldn't have been doing in the past, and it's um it it I I feel like it's a fantastic advert for dairy farming because these cows are really free range, whether it's winter or summer, they can essentially they choose where they go. Um, and yeah, very pleased with it because it it it works for the cows and it works for me.

Matthew Senior:

Right. Well, very much what George was saying, really. So for me, um it it's probably given me a another incentive within dairying, um, and it means that I'm quite happy to carry on milking cows, well, not physically, but managing cows for probably another 20 years. Um and there's it just makes it so easy. But also for for the younger generation that don't want to milk cows. Now we've we've had various members come through of the younger generation that if you'd asked them to milk a cow, they would have run a mile. But liaising or working their way around the robot, and I've trained them with the grazing, they absolutely love it. Um and it's just so simple. That was just it. It's it's it gives you the flexibility or or us the flexibility to do a lot of other things and enjoyment. Sarah.

Sarah Bolt:

Well, for those of you that know me, um know that I've always had aspirations of uh running my own dairy farm, and that's always been on uh an autumn block robotic system um with self-feed. The only thing you're doing wrong, George, is it should have jersey cows. So when when I win the lottery, it's not an if. When I win the lottery, I'm coming to you so I can learn what I need to do.

Andrew Jones:

Um no, uh it's uh yes, I don't know what to say to that really. Um otherwise, it's no, it's been fantastic. Thank you very much to the both of you. It's been uh sort of we've talked about oh, we should do this for a little bit, and I'm so glad we finally sat down and done this. Um appreciate both your time. It's been fantastic. And yeah, no, it shows that you know you can graze with robots. People think, what does it say? We've already said, once you get uh robots, you must have you know housed three, six, five times a day. And you said that, George, that's your accountant's first reaction, must sell the cows. Um, but it shows you can do it. Um, you both obviously were experienced grazers beforehand, but it doesn't mean you can't go on and continue to be a grazer if that's what you want to be with robots. It it shows that it's more than more than possible. So um thank you for that for sharing that with us, and hopefully it'll make people think about robots in a slightly different way. So um on that note, I guess it's a goodbye from me.

Sarah Bolt:

It's a goodbye from me.

George Dalton:

And a goodbye from me, and a goodbye from me.

Matthew Senior:

Thank you.

Andrew Jones:

Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to the ChewintheCud Podcast, a podcast for the UK dairy industry, brought to you from the southwest of England and listened to around the world. Now for the really boring bit, I'm afraid, the legal disclaimer. The information provided during this podcast has been prepared for general information purposes only and does not constitute advice. The information must not be relied upon for any purpose, and no representation or warranty is given to its accuracy, completeness, or otherwise. Any reference to other organizations, businesses, or products during this podcast are not endorsements or recommendations of ChewintheCud Ltd. The views of Andrew Jones are personal and may not be the views of Chewinthe Cud Ltd, and the views of Sarah Bolt are personal and may not be the views of Kingshay Farming and Conservation Limited and any affiliated companies. For more information on the podcast and details of services offered by ChewintheCud Limited, visit www.chewinthecud.com. Thank you and goodbye.