The Mobile Milking System

A few years a ago a friend a showed me a picture of a Belgium farmer milking a small herd of cows in a paddock. The farmer was using a portable cow shed. It dawned on me that a cowshed can be totally mobile.

I now believe that a mobile cowshed has a huge amount of potential, particularly for young farmers.

For the last year I have been working with Dr Ian Domigan and the Farm Management Department from Lincoln University, to investigate how the mobile cowshed could fit into New Zealand farming systems. We completed a pilot study earlier in the year which can be found here on the One Farm website.

Below is a mobile cowshed that is being used in Ireland. It is a 15 aside herringbone cowshed and it moves after every milking.

Here is a video of the cowshed in action.

This is another mobile cowshed that is being used in Argentina by a farmer called Luis Peluffo. It’s a bit different to the Irish example but the cows are milked in the paddock and the cowshed moves after every milking.

How Does It Work?

Rather than the cows going to the cowshed the mobile cowshed goes to the cows. The cowshed is simply parked in the paddock and the cows move from the current break (or paddock) through the cowshed and directly onto their new break of grass.

There is a separate trailer which contains the vat, milk cooler, and all wash up facilities. Once the cows have been milked the machine is washed and the portable vat is taken to the main vat located by the tanker track.

The cowshed runs on a generator, which powers the vacuum pump, lights, water pumps, chiller unit and water heating.

The feedback I have had from farmers around the world using mobile cowsheds is that the cows associate milking time with getting fed. They learn that moving through the cowshed is the way to getting onto their new break of grass. So cow flow has not been a problem.

The effluent issue is solved in a different way than a traditional cowshed. In a normal cowshed the cows are brought to the same central holding yard twice a day and all the effluent is collected. That effluent is then spread using some type of irrigator.

The mobile cowshed is moved after every milking. The cows will gather at the entrance of the cowshed. The farmer may put a portable electric fence around the herd to stop them wandering off. The cows then move through the cowshed over the next 1-2 hours (depending on number of cows and the size of cowshed). At the end of milking the cowshed is moved to the next break. So the cows are not standing in the same place twice producing effluent. For the rest of the season the cowshed should not be parked in the same place twice. The resulting effluent discharge, will be the same as a herd of cows standing in a gate way or a mob of beef animals being run through a set of yards.

I have had a few meetings with Environment Canterbury and they have said that this dairy system will may require a resource consent. This is because dairy farms need to obtain consent to discharge effluent onto land. With the mobile system, effluent is not being collected. So you don’t need to discharge it. The view is that this system in the same as a beef farm from an effluent perspective.

I believe there are three areas where the mobile system can be useful. 

1. Allows sheep/beef & arable farmers to diversify into dairy without having to do a full dairy conversion. This equates to an increase in cashflow.
2. Allows farmers to move their milking herd to different areas of land. This opens up a whole new world of farming systems, that can reduce nitrate leaching from a dairy herd. Such as integrating a herd of cows into a cropping rotation. 
3. Provides an alternative pathway to farm ownership. Sharemilkers can partner with sheep/beef & arable farmers, providing additional sharemilking opportunities and cashflow for land owners.

I'm hoping to get the funding together to trial a 200 cow operation, using a prototype mobile cowshed.

So what do you think? Do you think this is a good idea?

I'm keen to hear peoples opinions.