Ed O'Brien recently accepted an award from Land O Lakes for
Excellent Milk Quality for the last 12 months. This was a great
honour for Ed coming from a family steeped in a strong dairy
farming tradition. The O'Briens were the first farmers in the area
to install a pipeline milking system in 1955 and have been
respected dairy farmers for many years.
The year 2000 was a particularly disappointing year for them with
all-time high cell counts which had been rising steadily in the
preceding years. The double-8 herringbone parlour they had
installed back in 1967 was struggling to cope with a herd size of
240 cows, taking over 5 hours to complete each milking. Ed and his
wife were frustrated and almost at the point of defeat when they
found Dairymaster.
After assessing the equipment, Dairymaster were confident of
solving the O'Brien's problem. Dairymaster pulsation and clusters
were installed on a trial basis in August of 2002 with the
agreement that they would be returned in three months if they did
not solve the problem.
The world-renowned Dairymaster cluster, the unique liner design
and the electronic pulsation system turned the situation around.
The cows previously reluctant to enter the parlour were now
entering with ease and their teat end condition improved
significantly. In the next few months the milk line was changed to
a mid-line to optimise the Dairymaster performance.
The result of this exercise was that the O'Briens confidence was
restored and they decided to continue with previously shelved plans
to build a new milking parlour. Following consultation with the
Dairymaster design team Ed decided on a 25 unit sided by side
Swiftflo Dairymaster milking parlour. Ed is now milking in excess
of 150 cows per hour and has regained his pride in dairy
farming.
The features of the O'Brien Swiftflo parlour include:
- Auto cow identification.
- Weighall milk meters.
- Swiftflo bailing.
- Automatic cluster removers (automatic detachers).
- Robotic drafting.
- Automatic Weighing.
- Up and over backing gate.
- Auto Washer.
- Voice messaging.
- Variable speed milk pump.
