He is also well-placed to see the comparisons in opting for a herringbone or rotary design. He and wife Elizabeth are equity partners in a 680-cow farm, with a 50-bail rotary. They also involved in a sharemilking partnership next door milking cows through a 40-a-side herringbone.
While labour saving may be touted as a benefit for “going rotary”, Neill advises there is more to consider than that might suggest.
“If you were going herringbone these days you would have to be committed to being low-tech. However staff are increasingly expecting the technology, and the industry is moving that way more.”
A typical herringbone operation could have a skilled operator and a junior on duty for milking.
“That compares to a complex, technologically advanced rotary where you are expecting a single staff member to operate for maybe three hours on their own in what is essentially a remote industrial site.”
This requires a staff member with a particularly specialist skill-set, capable of understanding the technology, working it, and also managing cows.
It means recruiting carefully, remunerating sufficiently for the right person, and probably employing a full-time, fully skilled ‘casual’ milker for days when full-time staff are off.
“You can’t just go and get a relief milker from off the farm to run this sort of set-up.”
Neill says the skills are needed to optimise the use of technology installed.
“Technology is not always used fully unless the right people with the right training and motivation are there to make it as effective as it can be.”
Rotaries are not about how to save on labour, but about using technology to make more informed decisions to maximise per cow performance.”
