Leading farm automation business, Lely, produced the 1000th Vector feeding system today (Tuesday, March 9) – a special milestone, as they have doubled production in the past three years.
The Vector feeding system is now used in 31 countries on a wide variety of dairy and beef cattle farms.
The 1000th Vector is on its way to Societa Agricola Rendena San Michele’s dairy farm in Italy, to feed a herd of 117 to 130 lactating cows and associated young stock, heifers and dry cows.
Societa Agricola Rendena San Michele has been using the Lely Vector feeding system for many years.
The choice for the new generation mixing and feeding robot was a logical one, according to Roberto Tognato.
“The new mixing and feeding robot has improved in many aspects, but the faster auger motor was the deciding factor for us,” he explained.
The Rendena breed of cows from the Alpine regions is at risk of extinction.
“Their feed efficiency, fat and casein production are better when they are fed with dry rations only. The faster auger motor ensures that dry rations are cut even better,” Tognato added.
More farmers switching to automatic feeding
“Over the past decade we have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience with automatic feeding,” said Jelmer Ham, product manager feeding at Lely International.
We listened to our customers, conducted research and tried new things. In doing so, we relied on proven principles of automatic feeding, and improved a large part of the system.
Lely has said it can see reliance on the Vector growing and the added value of automatic feeding is recognised by increasingly more dairy and beef farmers.
“It is a revolutionary system that, in addition to energy and labour savings, has an unprecedented positive effect on cow health and feed efficiency. By feeding more often and more precisely, the nutrients in the feed are optimally utilised,” Ham added.
“The intelligent software also enables steering based on profitability instead of just on milk yield and weight gain. Both dairy and beef farmers can calculate the effect on their margin of a change in a ration and thus improve their operating results.”
Growth of Vector
Last year, Lely saw sales of the Vector grow significantly. For this year the company expects this upward trend to continue even more strongly.
Lely, founded in 1948, develops high-quality robots and data systems, designed to improve animal welfare as well as the flexibility and productivity of dairy farms.
With its head office in The Netherlands and a global network of Lely Center facilities, the Lely Group is active in more than 45 countries and employs approximately 1,600 people.
