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In the current climate, with the economy still facing many troubles, milk prices at ridiculously low levels and dairy farmers all over the UK deciding to call it a day, you may wonder why any dairyman would be contemplating major expenditure.
And yet the Bendall family, who have been at New Farm between Marksbury and Priston near Bath since 1962, have just invested in not one, but two DeLaval Voluntary Milking System (VMS) robotic milking pens, housed in a brand new barn.

"It's true that this was no small sum for us," said Andrew Bendall, who runs today's milking operations at New Farm with his brother, Stephen. "But it didn't take us long to realise that the figures stacked up. JAW Bendall & Sons is a family business – my dad has been milking since the 1930s – and eventually we would like to hand things on to my son Richard. It was the fact that Richard was about to complete his studies at agricultural college that triggered our decision; with an extra person in the business it was obvious that we had to look at our costs, especially as we were also contemplating a new milking parlour to maintain efficiency.

"Looking at it over a 10-year period we realised that just by dispensing with a herdsman we could finance the cost of the VMS installation. The VMS would make that possible, while the extra yield and efficiency

would help us to continue improvement of the business."

The family spent some time looking at the options. As John Bendall had been using Alfa Laval equipment since the 1930s, DeLaval was a clear favourite and it was clinched after seeing some exciting installations at work.

"The robotic arm of DeLaval's VMS is streets ahead of the competition," says Stephen. "It's quick and accurate in attaching the milking lines and it can accommodate cows with high or low udders which other systems struggle to manage."

The Bendalls placed the order for the DeLaval VMS in October 2008 and work began almost immediately. T H White's refined design system quickly resolved the best layout for the installation; The Bendalls are currently milking 132 cows so two VMS units were needed. These were to be housed in a new purpose-built barn which was to be erected across the end of the existing cow sheds. As it was, the ground available for this was sloping, meaning that considerable ground works were necessary, resulting in a barn layout that was limited in size.

"That constraint resulted in an interesting situation," comments T H White dairy manager Adrian Moore. "The layout of the

new barn lent itself to a 'Free Cow Traffic' VMS system, rather than the more usual 'Feed First' system. So this was the first DeLaval free traffic installation in the UK, but there are likely to be many more."
The new building went up in the early months of 2009 and New Farm commenced VMS milking on 3 August 2009.
"The cows took to it very easily," says Andrew. "Now things have settled down we are seeing an average of 31 kilos per cow, with some giving up to 60 kilos. Each VMS unit is harvesting an average of 2,000 kilos every 24 hours. Of course, the system also shows up problems. Each cow is closely monitored and we have one that is only yielding 12 litres per day, with each milking taking 20 minutes compared to an average of 8 or 9 minutes. It's a hard decision, but she will have to go."
The DeLaval VMS has transformed the Bendalls' lifestyle – now they can monitor all functions of the milking remotely from the farmhouse or even from mobile phones. If something does require attention T H White or even DeLaval can access the system remotely to carry out most adjustments. The Bendalls' verdict: "Brilliant!"

Agriculture