solutions on microlevel

During this project we have found some solutions on microlevel to reduce the labour on the farm.

Short walklines

A lot of time is wasted during the day by walking from place A to place B. For example: you have a shovel in the milkingbarn and you also need it in the youngstockbarn. If you have to walk that line every day it takes a lot of time. It might be interesting to buy another shovel for the youngstockbarn. When you are building a new barn it is interesting to think about short walklines. You can put the stables for pregnant cows in the front of the barn because you pass that many times during the day. Placing the milkingparlour on a logically place is also recommanded because than the cows dont have to walk a long distance.

Tip

Tip: write down all the jobs you do during the week with the time each job takes. Than you get a good idea of wich kind of jobs takes to much time. Then you can think about it and try to reduce the labour on your farm.

Automatic milk dispenser

Feeding the calves milk, cost time every day. With an automatic milk dispenser you don´t have to feed your calves milk, because the machine does it for you. That saves you time every day. The calves drink small portions during the day, therefor there is less chance on diarree. The disadvantage is that only big farmers can use it. For smaller farmers it is to expensive. An other disadvantage is that you still have to feed the calves in the single boxes. And when they get a little bit older they usaly get a problem with sucking on each other because they dont get to fill there needs.

Acitvitymeters

Checking the cows on heat takes a lot of time and patience. If you are not in the barn during the day you don´t now if there is a cow in heat. that cost a lot of money. there are several systems in the marked now to check cows on heat. An activitymeter is on the leg of the cow and it measures if the cow is more actif than usual. It sends the data to a computer and there the farmer can see wich cows were on heat. It is an acurate system and it saves the farmer a lot of time.

Movie

Many jobs on the farm are done by hand. That takes a lot of time and it´s not good for your body. We have made a movie that shows some solutions to reduce the labour that you normally would do by hand. Click here for the movie!

Page updated 23.4.2007