100 unit rotary milking parlour opens up options for Nyora farming family

THE BRAND new 100 unit rotary milking parlour at the Lancey family farm in Nyora has been in operation for about two months and farmer of 40 years, Chris Lancey is happy with its performance.
The family had the option to put in another 70 unit rotary system; their existing one was already milking 1500 cows at 21 rounds, so they decided a 100 unit rotary, which can milk up to 3000 cows, would open up opportunities. 
Earthworks on the Mount Lyall Road property began at the end of November last year with the aim of having all the earthworks done and footings in before Christmas. 
This eventuated and by early January they started standing the shed up and getting the system in place. 
“(We) started milking on the second of July and then it's taken us two months to get the old dairy out and completely change it to yards,” explained Chris during a farm tour last week. 
“We've still got our underpass to put in on the end of the drafting yard, so it goes out under the laneway and we can have cows coming home, walking over the top, in the yard, around the platform, through the draught and back out onto the feed pad.”
Explaining that they haven't been able to put the underpass in because the laneway is the current access to the rotary while they got the new yard done, but work on it is imminent. 
“That'll take us two weeks and we'll hopefully have that all operational, which will make a big difference.”
The cost of the project is estimated to be at $5 million, but in terms of technology Chris said the only real difference to the 70 unit rotary is that it now includes the posi - arms and the cow scout with the automatic drafting feed detection.
Chris chose to install posi-arms, as he thought it might have made it a little bit easier putting cups on.
“I don't know if it is,” he admitted, but is still very happy with it. 
“I love it for the cup alignment, pulling the cups off the cows. It's like a swing over dairy so it's falling off straight between the legs, not around the legs.”
The speed of the system is something though, that took Chris by surprise. 
“I thought we would have got away with two operators putting cups on, but a 10 minute round at six seconds a cow is pushing things bit, you could probably get away with two operators in the morning when you slow it down a little bit more,” he explained. 
The cow scout with the automatic drafting feed detection will make the job a whole lot easier according to Chris, once they’ve set it up. 
“It will save manual drafting, as, in the previous setup we didn’t have anywhere to set drafting up with the way the yards were. We were a bit limited, so we're looking forward to getting that all up and running.”
The system has been milking up to 1650 cows this season at the Lancey farm and may increase to over 2000 next year, with the capacity for more.
It is the fourth rotary that Chris has built for the farm and he reckons it will be his last but is happy with the legacy it will leave for the future of the farm. 
“It'll be the last one I build. That why I got this one - it’ll do me and that’s why I’ve put everything into it.”
“It has performed very well. The cows have been exceptional, even from the first milking. We'd walk four or five up to the rotary at a time and three of them would walk straight on and you’d just follow the other two on, you didn't actually have to push any cows on. They've been amazing, as you can see tonight, nothing worries them and right through the build it’s been the same and they’ve just adapted unbelievable.”