A comparison of the labour requirements on Irish dairy farms with automatic and conventional milking systems integrated with grazing

An influencing factor in the uptake of automatic milking systems by dairy farmers is the perceived reduction of labour requirements. The aim of this study was to examine the influence of automatic milking technology on labour input compared to conventional milking systems. Seven automatic and ten conventional milking farms participated in a year-long study. All farm operators were provided with a specially designed SMART phone application, on which they recorded the duration of pre-defined tasks they performed throughout the day. These recordings were carried out on three consecutive days per month. The majority of tasks were similar for both automatic and conventional milking farms except for the milking process. The average total dairy labour input was 16 and 25 hours/cow/year for automatic and conventional milking farms, respectively. Time associated with the milking process was reduced with automatic milking (2.16 hours/cow/year) compared with conventional milking systems (9 hours/cow/year). Due to the greater emphasis on grass allocation in automatic systems, the daily duration spent allocating grass was greater (00:26) (hh:mm) for automatic farms compared to the conventional milking farms (00:06). These results show a labour reduction with the automatic milking systems compared to conventional dairy farming integrated with grazing and provide objective information for farmers considering converting to an automated milking system where the availability of skilled labour is an issue.