The concept of a robot ‘doing the foddering’ has become a reality on many beef farms across northern Italy and a group of beef farmers from Ireland recently travelled to Verona, Italy, to see it for themselves.
The study tour was facilitated by Lely Centre Mullingar and led by Niall McGauran. It focused on what role Lely’s robotic feeding solution ‘the Lely Vector’ could have on Irish beef farms.
Agriland was in attendance with the group of beef farmers on the tour also.
The population of Italy is over 58 million people and land prices here vary from €35,000-60,000/ha. There are 1.1 million farms in Italy, covering 12.5 million ha. Most farms are family owned and the average farm size is 11ha.
Irish beef systems differ to Italian systems in that all of the Italian farms visited on the tour were purchasing their store cattle from France – where they were then brought to Italy and finished indoors.
The beef farmers visited were all finishing continental suckler-bred cattle and most were specialising in bull beef however, one farm was finishing all heifers on contract for a beef processor.
Irish beef systems are predominantly grass-based, but most cattle finished over the winter months are fattened indoors and some specialist Irish beef farms finish cattle indoors for a 60 to 70-day period all year-round, while others finish their cattle directly off grass over the summer months.
Beef processors in Ireland have a preference for steer beef, whereas most male cattle in mainland Europe are finished as bull beef.
The first farm visited was Fossalunga Farm located to the north of Venice. The farm is feeding 1,000 bulls with a Lely Vector feed system.
Two mixing and feeding robots (MFRs) are filled from a single kitchen. 27/loads/day are fed-out with the two MFRs. Each pen is fed three to four times/day with feed pushed in by the vector regularly.
Bulls are purchased from France at 350-400kg and were kept on farm for just over six months. The translator explained that Italian beef farmers are paid a subsidy for cattle that remain on-farm for over six months and one day.
There are five different diets on the farm. The diet ingredients included:
- Corn silage;
- Soybeans;
- Barley;
- Dehydrated beet pulp;
- Straw;
- Corn flour;
- Distillers;
- Hay;
- Alfalfa;
- Molasses;
- Fats;
- Vector supplements.
Bulls are purchased at €1,000/head approximately and the target slaughter weight is 750kg for Charolais and 650kg for Limousins.
Limousin bulls have an average daily gain (ADG) of 1.55kg/head/day while Charolais bulls have an ADG of 1.8kg/head/day.
The farm was paid for its beef at an agreed price/kg live weight minus 2-3% for weight losses of the cattle in transit to the factory.
Finished cattle price for this farm was ranging from €3.30-3.40/kg live weight on the week of the tour. Bulls were slaughtered at 18 to 20-months-of-age, with an approximate kill out of 58%.
The second farm visited belonged to Enrico Pizzolo and was located near the town of Lonigo.
The Lely Vector system was installed on this farm in 2018 and two MFRs are delivering 27 loads of feed totalling 15 tonnes to over 1,000 Limousin bulls on the farm.
The kitchen on this farm is the largest size kitchen available in the Lely Vector system at a size of 24X20m.
Each MFR can hold a maximum of 750kg for each feed but 650kg is the recommended amount.
The Vector grab in the kitchen can hold 80-120kg of ingredients in each grab with an accuracy rate above 95% for loading ingredients.
Most farms visited had their Vector programmed to feed pens three to four times/day, with feeding taking place both day and night.
To speed up the loading of the feeder on this farm, concentrates are loaded by way of an auger from a meal bin. The grab can load approximately 25kg of concentrates/minute but the auger can load 90kg of concentrates/minute.
Pizzolo explained that grain is loaded in the kitchen approximately once/month, straw every seven to 10 days and maize silage is loaded every three days.
No staff are required for feeding cattle at the weekends and he explained that the only weekend job on the farm is herding and health checking the bulls.
There are seven labour hours employed on the farm per week, versus 28 labour hours/week employed before the robotic feeders were installed.
Bulls are eating approximately 9kg DM/head/day and feed costs are below €3/head/day with other costs about €1/head/day.
The Limousin bulls on Pizzolo’s farm had an ADG of approximately 1.4kg/head/day, but the bulls on the straw bedding performed better by about 100g/day.
Enrico buys his bulls from France at 320kg live weight for €4.40/kg delivered. The seller pays for the transport and an allowance is made for what can be up to a 6% difference in weights from the cattle leaving France.
The sale price at finish is approximately €3.75-3.80/kg live weight and the target net margin is €100/head. The farm finishes approximately 1,700 bulls/year.
The third farm visited on the trip belonged to Mattieo Mantouanelli and was located in Sallizile, Italy.
Interestingly, this farm was feeding a number of by-products from the food industry, such as extracts from processed sunflower seeds, soya and maize.
This was reducing feed costs on this farm to €2.75/head/day. There were 300 bulls on this farm and almost 600 bulls/year being finished.
The bulls’ ADG on the farm was calculated using the weight of the bulls leaving the source farm in France minus 2% and then divided by the number of days on farm. It was as follows:
- Aubrac: 1.45kg/head/day;
- Charolais: 1.5kg/head/day.
The Vector system on this farm was powered by solar panels and the system was using approximately 25kw/h/day, according to the farmer, who also said that energy and maintenance costs were being valued at approximately €13/day.
The kitchen was installed in a retrofitted shed on this farm.
The farm had a target net margin of €138/bull and when the €70 government subsidy was added on (as mentioned above), there was a net margin of €200/bull being achieved.
This farm was also growing tobacco and the leaves were processed, dried and boxed on the farm. The farmer remarked that “there is more money in the bulls than the tobacco”.
Interestingly, the farmer outlined (through a translator) that a derogation on N allowances for the farm was permitted as the farm was supplying slurry and manure to an anaerobic digestor.
The final farm on the tour was located in Zevio near Verona and belonged to Fabio Cantu.
This farm was feeding 600 heifers on contract for a beef processor in the region. The arrangement on the farm was that the processor owned the cattle while the feeding facilities and equipment were owned by the farmer.
This beef processor has 12,000 cattle in a similar finishing arrangement across the region.
Cantu grows a crop of maize which was sold to the finishing enterprise and the feeding was carried out with two Lely Vector MFRs and a kitchen. The longest journey on a feed route was almost 1km from leaving the kitchen to returning.
Fabio is paid approximately 50c/head/day for each animal on the farm and feed costs were carried by the owner of the cattle. The system was seen as a low-risk strategy for the farm. The ADG of the heifers is approximately 1.1kg/head/day.
The installation of the robotic feeding system has reduced the workload of the 600-heifer farm from six hours/day to two hours/day – on a regular day. The kitchen on this farm is topped up every day excluding Sunday.
All the beef farmers visited had impressive animal performances and the farmers noted how the installation of the Lely Vector robot had significantly reduced their workload while also keeping fresh feed in front of cattle around the clock.
The past decade has seen significant growth in the level of automation used for carrying out work on farms across Ireland. From milking cows to scraping slats, pushing feed and cleaning passages and feeding cattle.
The Lely Centre Mullingar staff in attendance on the tour are confident that their robotic cattle feeding solutions will become more sought after amongst specialist beef famers in Ireland as farmers look to automation to improve livestock performance, improve flexibility and reduce the workload on their farms.
Robot feeding open day in Cork
To mark 10 years of automatic feeding with Ireland’s first Lely Vector, Lely is set to host an open day in Banteer, Co. Cork on Friday, August 23.
The farm hosting the open day is Glen South Farm and was the first farm in the Republic of Ireland to install a Lely Vector and was also the first Lely Vector installed on a beef unit in Europe.
Farmers who are interested in attending should send their name and the number of people attending to +353 87 485 4468.