Mid North dairy farmer Gary Zweck has invested in six milking robots and a large barn-style system for his cows, to set his business up for future generations.
Gary, with his wife Ros, son Justin and partner Brydie, owns a 300 cow dairy and broadacre cropping business near Blyth, northwest of the Clare Valley. Known as The Plains, the area is drier and tougher for farming than Clare.
“I’ve been dairy farming here since 1970. My father started the business, selling milk to Golden North and we’re now with Woolworths supplying milk for the Farmer’s Own brand, which is sold in Woolworths stores throughout SA and Northern Territory,” Gary said.
“Back in the early days, we milked about 40 cows in a six-stand walk-through dairy. When we got to 70 cows, we put in a six-a-side zigzag Herringbone, at 45 degrees. Then, a few years later, when we grew to about 120 cows, we changed the pit in the original shed and went to a 10-a-side doubled-up 90-degree Herringbone.
“That served us well until a few years ago when we grew to milking 300 cows. That’s when we decided to get into robots.”
The Blyth area has fairly low rainfall and minimal grazing opportunities, which encouraged Gary to make changes to his feed program. “We built a feed pad in 2001, which was 300 meters long, with a gravel road and fence down the middle. Then we went to TMR feeding,” Gary said.
“As the summers got hotter, we decided to put up a big shed, 100m long and 41m wide, and we shifted the cows under the roof in 2020. The shed enables us to minimise feed waste as well – when you’re putting feed out in the extremes, and then watching it spoil in different weather events, the logical step is to put it all under a roof.
“It was a big commitment, but we’re happy with the investment as we quickly noticed a drop in cell count and an increase in cow contentment.”
In 2022, three GEA milking robots were installed, which necessitated some adjustments to the shed. “We had to add another 15 metres to the shed for the robots, and then we built another shed adjacent to that for the milk vats and an office,” Gary said.
“We commissioned half of the shed in early May 2024 to enable us to milk about 150 through the three robots, and 150 through the old dairy. Once we’d finished the shed improvements, we installed another three robots in September 2024 to milk the entire herd. We’ve now shut the old dairy down.”
The total investment in the shed and the six robots was significant, but the Zweck family expects the robots to pay for themselves quickly with increases in milk quantity expected and a more targeted use of labour another positive outcome.
One challenge has been managing the herd as the robots were introduced. “From what I’m reading, farmers who invest in robots look at their breeding program and start selecting differently,” Gary said.
“We are always looking closely at the next selection of bulls to enhance the genetics of the herd and also to ensure that our cows can be cupped up by the robots. We are currently focussing on teat length and a more even udder floor as reverse tilt has been creeping into the breeding and has been an issue.”
The Zweck family has split the herd into fresh cows and later lactation cows and set up a three-zone gate system to ensure cows go through to the robots for milking.
“As robots are a cow-led miking system, we found that stale cows are not driven to go through a dairy as much as fresh cows. With the shed, we’ve got cows that are fully fed under a roof, in comfortable bedding and they just want to sit there,” Gary said.
“We had to develop a system on one side of the shed where we push them through a series of gates to mimic that ABC system. This is where we introduce any new heifers to the system and colostrum is captured from this side of the shed as well. On the flip side, we have cows that walk in independently to be milked three or four times a day.”
Gary said the benefits of robotic systems far outweighed the challenges. “I’m not getting up at 3am and going off to milk cows, and then watching the clock and milking again at 3pm like I was,” he said.
“The lifestyle benefits are fantastic and I’m a lot more relaxed. We’ve got an app on our phones that alerts us if there are any problems.”
Robots also make dairy farming more attractive for younger generations. With Gary and Justin farming together, and another generation on the way, the decision to invest in robots was easier.
“I’m getting up in age, and to my son Justin’s credit, he’s the one managing the shed. He’s the one managing the robots,” Gary said. “There are little electric motors that drive the robotic arms which can be adjusted from the office computer or via Dairy Tech through team viewer which is very handy. I thought, ‘I don’t need to learn this’.
“Justin has been great at picking up the technology of the robotics and utilising the data that comes from the robots onto the Dairy Net computer program. He has become more involved in cattle management which has taken the pressure off me.”
To share what the Zweck family is doing with their shed and robots, Dairy Australia, through Dairy SA, held a Field Day at the property on 5 February hosted by GEA and Spanlift, and 140 people attended, illustrating the interest in ag tech.
“We have a lot of people coming through and looking at it, including ag bureaus and schools. There’s a lot of interest in robotics and I think this is the first robotic barn system in South Australia, so we’re happy to share what we’re learning,” Gary said.
Gary is a Board member of SADA and an active Board member of the Barossa and Mid North Co-operative.
