Did some milking up the road

Good friends and neighbours up the road got back into dairy after a 9 year exit shortly after we put the robot in 6 years ago. They subsequently bought our old flat parlour stalls and our Delaval MU350?s or Milk masters as we called them. About a month ago an elderly family member passed away so I stopped in a couple milkings and milked for them. They milk around 50 with our old equipment. They actually used to work for us before they started back up on their own again. Just like old times and I loved it! Friday one of the sons messaged me said if I?m bored his dad was choring alone he might like a hand. I went down and he was scraping out with the skid steer had no idea I was coming and he stopped when I came over. I said are you busy for 5 minutes? He said no what do you need? I said good you setup the dairy and I?ll start milking. Had a blast. I was there maybe close to 2 hours and in reality maybe only saved him a half hour as at that point other than milk he just had the calves to feed but a half hour means a lot in the evening. He was very appreciative and it was fun. The son covers chores here for the feeder cattle when we?re away for a few days. They have a wedding in a few weeks and I?m going to help that weekend as well. Had we been able to keep good help and still had that old parlour we?d probably still be milking ,who knows for how much longer but at least for the time being. Doing it day in day out alone with the robot was far less than desirable and I still couldn?t find reliable competent help because no one liked the robot either. I really enjoyed milking and having good help that was engaged and wanted to be here be it family or employees. It hasn?t been the case here the last 5 years we milked. I miss the good ol days but scarce little about the last 5 years in our robot barn is worth missing. Not having help without the robot wasn?t physically possible either. I?ve done that before too and you?d literally spend 10 hours a day just doing chores. The robot and improvements we did to the barn cut that time in half but it still wasn?t much of a life more of just an existence.

I can understand what you mean about going and helping your neighbors milk. Handling the cows, and doing familiar tasks, feels good, and natural. Thought I am always surprised at your comments about your experience with the robot milking system. More farm around me are installing VMS units, and have had nothing but good experience with them, two farms near me each have five units. Nearly all have Lelly robots, one fellow I know put in a Surge/Westfalia , and after two years they pulled it out, and put in a parlour, so I have to think it was more about the equipment choice than anything else.

Robots are great but you still need some help ,the part I didn?t like was flying solo all the time and not being able to leave the yard without being on call. If I had good help the robot would have been a better fit.