Feeding Cows & Farm Nostalgia: Tour of The Old Milking Parlour
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- Опубліковано 11 січ 2025
- Join Richard and Simon on the farm for a festive day in the life of Yorkshire farming! 🚜 First, we’re feeding the cows with silage and bedding them down with straw using the Spredabail machine. Then, Richard takes us on a nostalgic tour of the old, abandoned milking parlour, now draped in cobwebs but rich with history.
To wrap up, meet the star of Christmas Eve - a newborn calf from one of our heifers, born just in time to spread some holiday cheer! 🎄🐄 Richard ends the video with a heartfelt message, wishing all our viewers a very merry Christmas from the farm.
Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe to Yorkshire Farming for more real-life farming adventures! 🌾
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Hi Richard are you happy you have gone down the road of milking with robots? Love the channel from 🇮🇪 best of luck for 2025 👍
Rick. Your question had come at exactly the right moment. I’m just editing a video on the very question you’re asking 😄. I go into depth about our experience with the robots. If you can keep a secret until I can get the video finished and uploaded the shot answer it YES we have definitely made the correct choice for our farm. 👍
Nice to see the old parlour have milked in an old abreast parlour then a 12/12 herringbone milking 130 jersey cows then worked as tractor driver and did a bit of milking in a 20/20 herringbone bone parlour, never seen a robot milker up close. Great video have a great Xmas all the best and look forward to the next video. Merry Xmas Richard.
@@EarlePriest Earle. It looks like you have a lot of experience milling cows. The robot milking is a very clever piece of kit. There is a lot to go wrong but thankfully it doesn’t happen very often. Have a lovely Christmas all my best. Richard
Richard. Thanks for bringing us along on your journey and for producing food. It’s appreciated. We wish you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year. All the best.
@@Eddie_Tyler Eddie you are very welcome. I just love making the videos. It’s a fun little hobby. I will admit UA-cam is difficult, but fun nonetheless. Have a lovely Christmas all my best to you all Richard.
Richard Merry Christmas and thanks to you and all farmers for feeding us,just hope you all have a better 2025 despite Starmer and Reeves doing their best to sabotage your wonderful industry.
@@KeithHill-wc3ew Keith. Thanks for you supporting message. Yes let’s hope we can have a better outcome this year. I’m sure farmers will up the pressure. 👍
Hello Richard , new to your channel and must say your a real gentleman. We put slats over the pit of our old parlour and turned it into a calve house . Interesting how them feeding barriers keep breaking cause I was thinking of putting them in . Happy Christmas from fellow dairy farmer in NI
Eric. Now that’s a good idea to cover the old parlour it. The barrier don’t break that often. It is always the same section. I think we may have a fault batch. The rest are just fine. I would still recommend them. The cows are very comfortable using them. Merry Christmas and have a wonderful time. Richard
Hi Richard all the best to you and your loved ones I know what it's like to get as much done before Christmas day so you do the minimum but lost count of how many ruined Christmas dinners due to bad carvings, cows escaping pipes bursting or other disasters, sell your old parlour rich anyway merry Christmas
@@penningtoncolin WOW. It sounds like you have had a few testing and challenging Christmas Days. It can definitely spoil the Christmas meal. That’s farming. 🤣I just love it ♥️
Merry Christmas love watching your videos
Steven. Thank you for your kind words of support. Have a wonderful Christmas. Richard.
Happy Christmas to you and your family.
Edward. Thank you so much. You have a wonderful day
Evening Richard
Very nice surprise video on Christmas Eve, thank you
Your old parlour is like a time capsule, as you said about the dump bucket, left as it was after last use
How long a job was it milking your cows in the old parlour, bet you can't work out how you had the time, now you've got robots
I'm sure you will soon repair the little mishap with the gate, are the round bales hay ? Just wondered with you using a spike to handle them
I hope you, Simon and your family have a great day tomorrow, appreciate you will still have tasks to complete, but a well deserved rest if you can get it
Enjoy the family
Hope Simon can shake off the cold enough to enjoy tomorrow
Thank you again for your efforts to show and share your farming life
Take care
Back UK Farmer's 🇬🇧
Geoff
Geoff. It took about 2.5 hours twice a day to milk 60 cows on the old system. The dump bucket was to keep any milk out of the other milk if we were treating a cow. The round bails are haylage but very dry it is more hay than silage.
I would just like to say thank you for you message. I really appreciate your very well written message of support. A very big thank you for us. You have a lovely Christmas 🎄 all my best Richard.
Hi Richard going to be looking into a new setup in the future years and was just wondering about the dimensions of your shed ( width x length ) and how wide your passages are and the width and depth of each cubical thanks Sam
Sam. Thanks for you question. I will get the measurements of the building for you. I’m just putting together my next video which is all about our setup after 5 years. You may find it interesting for your project planning. I will add the sizes into the video. Richard 👍
@@yorkshirefarming thankyou very much
Did you look at any other robots when you were pricing up new build.looking at different options as labour is both too expensive and very hard to get here in ireland. All the best for Christmas
Hi Mark . Yes we spent a full Year studying options. Visited a lot of robot farms. Open days etc. The things we had to over come was our current buildings. We tried to retrofit robots into old buildings. This was not going to work there was too many corners and trap or pinch points. The whole Cubicals needed completely redoing. We started to look at “What Does The Cow want “ it sound crazy but we started to think like a cow and put our selves in the cows position.
We went with a green field site and a complete re biuld ( this was cheaper in the long run).
We looked at all the robot companies at the time. We nearly decided on the GEA mono box. It all came down to Service and reliability. Lely have the largest presence and service engineers and parts are always available. Robots have to run 24/7 365 days a year. Robots are not cheap to run. We are Father and Son team with our old cowman comes part time. Two of use can run 120 milking and a further 130 cattle with no problem. We rear all our own replacements too.
I hope this gives you an idea of what to think about when making a decision to go for it or not. For us it was the perfect choice and we will never go back to a conventional parlour again.
All the best. Happy Christmas. Thank for your support by watching my videos. If there is anything else you would like to know please just ask. Richard
@yorkshirefarming thanks for detailed reply.did you think leaving cows in full time was easier than abc grazing with robots.would be hoping to do a b grazing in at night and out during the day if I go robot milking. Am looking at going once a day current system out full time or robotic for next year.young family and no time off as milker s are not out there.
@ Mark. I can see why you’re considering Robots when you have a young family and ties with not much time to watch them grow up.
It is a very big decision to make. It all comes down to your farm layout. A perfect ring fence farm is the only way to graze cows on robots. Sadly our farm is very fragmented with public roads and villages. Grazing on a rotating ABC or AB system will not work here. So we keep our cows in 24/7. BUT we do graze!!! To do this we Zero Graze in the summer months. This is a challenge too. Getting a balance of fresh grass to the cows and enough grass for clapping silage. This will depend on the good of bad weather growing season.
Your probably better of than we are as far as layout of your farm and land. It is difficult for me to give an honest opinion on the grazing system as we have not done this. Visiting lots of farms that have or are grazing would be the way to go to get a better feel for the system. In my opinion I think every grazing paddock will need a good track to them. It’s down to that think like a cow again. If it too rough on your bear feet to go all the way back to the farm to get milked. Would you go? If I’m full of lush fresh grass would I go back and eat dry nuts in the robot?
I hope you can see. Think like a cow. Try to remove all obstacles as cows are lazy when they want to be but also love a constant routine and just love dull and boring routines.
Mark I’m not in any way trying to talk you out of a very big change in fact the opposite. I just don’t want you to make a wrong choice.
Robot manufacturers will try to sell the “lots of free time” card. Well this is true and also false as the same time. Your time is more flexible is how it should be sold. On robots you have taken away the milking job as it is now continuous job every minute of the day and night but you don’t have to stand with them. The nice bit is while you sleep the cows are milking. This also makes me smile 😊 when you go out for a family meal or just for a night out. The cows are being milked 😜 this is so satisfying. There is an opposite. Your time in your working day has now moved to management cow tasks. You’re constantly monitoring the cows in your mind while doing other tasks around the farm. Some say with robots you don’t spend any time with them. This is simply not true. You will in fact spend more time with them than you realise. The big thing is it is now in your own time and when you want too if you understand. Robot milking is a lot more relaxed approach. Non of rushing back from family Sunday lunch to milk the cows at a set time. You can now go at your leisure to do the routine jobs. There no rush any more. If your late after that unexpected rep as come to sell you a new tractor. No problem the cows are still been milking. It just means you’re a little late doing other routine jobs. As you can see it’s a lot more relaxed approach.
Sorry I’m probably boring you with this reply. I do tend to go on a bit.
I will say it again “THINK LIKE A COW “ what does she want and give it too her. She will love you making her life easy and reward with good mil production.
If you have any questions please ask
Happy new year and good luck. It’s a big investment. Richard
Hi Richard, nice to see your old milking parlour. What you think of the Robotic milking?
@@patrickbrennan6449 Patrick. Thanks I’m glad you enjoyed looking at our old Parlour. The Robot are a very clever piece of kit. Thankfully they don’t break down very often. What’s important to us is the cows just love the natural way of being milked. Thought describing the system doesn’t seem a natural way, but the cows just do what they want and when they want. It’s amazing to watch them.
@yorkshirefarming Glad you and you're cows are happy with Robotic Milking Richard. Happy Christmas and new Year. Great videos you make.
👍
@@andrewclohessy8228 Back at you Andrew 👍 thanks for your support