Calming Heifers Supports Robotic Success
Switching to an automated set-up can be fraught with stress – for cows and producers – but one Lancashire based producer is using a natural bovine pheromone product to smooth the transition.
Investing in building a herd and dairy business fit for the future meant embracing the latest technology for one Lancashire-based family. And although this has added greater flexibility to day-to-day management and helped to reduce stress on both the herd and staff, it’s not been without its teething problems.
The Dewhurst family partnership, comprising husband and-wife team Michael and Kate, and Michael’s parents John and Gillian, made the decision to replace their unit’s 15-year-old 13:32 swing-over milking parlour in 2023. “It wasn’t a bad parlour – the problem was the old brick building that housed it,” explains Michael.
The collecting yard was too small for what was then a 170-cow herd and the parlour was unbearably hot in the summer and always had a serious fly problem. “And don’t even get me started on how bad cow flow was. It took us three hours to milk, twice a day. That was a lot of time for both us and the cows to be standing on concrete.”
The business had already invested in a Lely Discovery slurry collector, back in 2021, which was working well on the unit and gave the family confidence in automated kit and its ability to function well in a dairy set-up.
Tech support
“We’d dipped our toe in the water, so to speak, with the slurry collector, so we decided to take the robotic milking system route,” explains Michael, adding that it was about the tech support team as much as the tech itself.
“We also struggled to find milking staff, granted not helped by our ‘challenging’ milking facilities and working conditions. But even our neighbouring producers with better parlours were finding it hard to recruit. So this was another tick in the robotic column for us when deciding what to invest in.”
Automated milking also added welcome flexibility to running the dairy business and allowed them to create a better work:life balance. “Kate and I have a young family, and mum and dad also wanted to take a step back and spend time with their grandchildren. Opting for a robotic system was an obvious choice.”
So today’s 220-cow pedigree Holstein all-year-round calving herd is now milked through four Lely robots and housed in a new 232-place cubicle shed, based at Whittingham Hall Farm near Preston. Herd growth came from home-bred replacements and there are also 220 followers at the unit.
Milk yield
Cows are now milked, on average, 3.2 times a day and herd average annual milk yield is 11,000 litres, at 4% butterfat and 3.3% protein, with an average somatic cell count of 100,000 cells/ml. “Some cows visit four times and the average has been up at around 3.5 times. But we’re happy with current levels.”
Milk yield has increased by around 10% since switching to robotic milking, but Michael says it will be another 12 months before they see the true impact of the new system. “I think we’ll add at least another 500 litres, if not more, to that average by this time next year.”
The move from twice-a-day milking through a conventional parlour to a four-robot system 18 months ago was challenging. “I’d say it took two weeks to ‘train’ the cows to the new set-up. And it took us about six months to adapt to the new working routine. Not too bad, on the whole, and we’re pleased with how it’s going.”
Training heifers, however, could be what Michael describes as ‘excruciating’ at times. “We’d get a run of heifers that would prove really difficult to train and then, inexplicably, we’d get a group that would take to the robots relatively easily. Trouble was, it was the challenging heifers that we’d come to expect and dread.”
That said, on the plus side, he says that the more ‘feisty’ heifers, once trained, are the ones best suited to the robotic system. “They’re the ones that visit the robot more often – they soon get into the swing of it and have plenty of get-up-and-go – and milk. It’s the more placid cows and heifers that tend to be in the ‘fetch’ group.”
But this trade-off was insufficient to ignore. Eager to find a solution to ease heifer training, Michael sat down with his vet and nutritionist during a routine meeting and asked for ideas.
His vet mentioned FerAppease – a natural, synthetic analogue of maternal bovine appeasing substance (mBAS), which is an important pheromone secreted from a cow’s udder skin when its calf suckles. It helps to reduce the impact of stress by blocking cortisol release. The spot-on product is applied above heifers’ noses and on the back of their necks, working to help keep them calm in stressful situations. One application takes effect within 30 minutes and will continue to work for at least 14 days. He mentioned that another local dairy producer was using this cattle-calming product to ease heifer transition to robotic milking on a neighbouring dairy unit. “So I had a chat with him, and then we decided to give it a go. There was little to lose and everything to gain,” says Michael.
That was just three months ago and, although in his words ‘the jury is still out’, there’s no doubt in his mind that it’s made a difference. Heifers definitely take to robotic milking more easily and are integrating well into the milking herd. Michael says that the team is no longer spending a disproportionate amount of time fetching heifers from the group to be milked – or standing with them at the robot helplessly looking on as they refuse to stand still to be milked.
“Immediately, we noticed that more heifers were taking just a day or two to be trained to go through the robot – rather than up to a week."
Calming support
“It’s not perfect, but we’re getting there,” he admits. “And we’ll continue to use the product on freshly calved heifers. We’re also using it on cows that have difficult calvings or that have experienced any additional stress at and around transition. We think it’s just gives them some calming support at a crucial time.”
The product is applied to all heifers as soon as they calve – 5ml is sprayed along the nose and 5ml at the back of the neck or the poll. “We fit their Lely collar and clip their udder and tails at the same time, and then they are left with their calf for a few hours to recover.”
And it’s the same routine with any cows that he feels warrant a little extra TLC after calving. “At £2 per dose, we’re not excessively liberal with it. But it’s also money well spent on certain cows.”
He says that calving and the start of lactation is a stressful time for all cattle – particularly heifers. This makes training heifers stress free, everyone is calm and chilled out and, when they mix in with the main milking herd, they also find it easier. “It’s not just heifer and cow welfare that’s improved – calmer cattle are also easier and safer for us to handle,” he adds.
He’s considering using it at other stressful times to improve cow welfare and make handling easier. “We could use it, for example, when bTB testing – just prior to the first injection due to its immediate effect. And it could also be used to reduce the impact of stress on the herd and staff when carrying out other routine tasks, like vaccination. It’s certainly something we’re thinking about and discussing with our vet. But there has to be a benefit to offset the cost.”
Driving down cost and improving efficiency are both on the cards for the family business. The herd has been mainly housed for the past decade, prior to the switch to robotic milking, and feed efficiency remains a key focus. Milking cows are fed a TMR comprising grass silage, brewers’ grains, chopped potatoes, whole crop wheat, plus a blend, a rumen buffer and limestone flour. This supports maintenance plus 28 litres and an 18% concentrate is fed through the robots to yield, at a rate of up to 14kg per day.
"Our plan for the next 15 years is to consolidate the business. We’ve made a significant investment in infrastructure that will allow our high-genetic-merit herd to express its true production potential. We will fine-tune our intensive system to maximise yields while, at the same time, optimise herd health, welfare and efficiency,” says Michael.
“Harnessing new and innovative tech and tools – like robotics and welfare-enhancing products like FerAppease – will help us to achieve that. Ultimately, we want to develop a robust and resilient business so that if our children want to they can be the sixth generation of our family to take the dairying route.”
Article Courtesy of Cow Management
Rachael Porter. "Calming Heifers Supports Robotic Success." Cow Management, November/December 2025, pp. 8-10.