Mackie’s have over 300 black and white Holstein milking cows, which make very popular dairy cows due to their high milk production (at about 4% butterfat), good temperament and their being strong and healthy. The farm crop strategy is related to the food required and we currently grow 600 acres of grass and 900 acres of cereals.

The cows milk themselves. We have five Lely ‘robotic milking machines’ which means the cows are free to eat, drink, ruminate and rest and be milked according to their own natural biorhythms. The ‘voluntary access milking system’ measures and records details like timing and milk yield. The cow’s collar also records and transmits information about each cow – monitoring her temperature and time spent eating, ruminating, resting or being active. This allows David and his team to keep a careful eye on the health of the cows. It’s a high-tech world – although our first machine was installed in 2001!

The ‘robotic’ milking unit recognizes each cow by the transponder on her collar, gives her a special extra feed of “cake”, washes the udder, fits on the milking equipment – it knows the dimensions of the cow and is assisted by an infra red light, carefully milks the cow, then checks the condition of the milk (conductivity test) before pumping it into the storage tank. The milking unit and cleaning brush are both steam cleaned before being used to milk the next cow.