| Owner: | John Jamieson |
| Land: | 182 ha of crop and grassland |
| Size of the herd: | 300 |
| Race: | Annan Holsteins |
| Milked cows: | 270 |
| Milk yield/cow: | 12,000 kg/year |
| Milked/day: | 3 times |
| Other animals: | 40 sheep |
| Mixer wagon: | BvL |
| Capacity: | 17m3 |
| Tractor: | Massey Ferguson |
| Output: | 120 hp |
Never before had John Jamieson used technology as powerful as that included in the DairyFeeder. Yet, he was able to handle it with perfect ease from the very beginning. "Controlling it is as easy as can be. You are familiar with all functions before you know it. Even our employee, Donald Cunningham, who is over 60, only required a short period of training to master the system perfectly".
One important reason for Mr. Jamieson to invest in this state-of-the-art technology was to increase feeding accuracy. Mr. Jamieson also appreciated the option of setting up different rations for different groups of animals. "At present, the deviation we find in our mixtures is at a mere 2 %".
The Dairy Feeder TMR system operates with a web-based access account, a transceiver box and a PDA (smartphone for operation).
The system requires a monthly usage fee as well as a SIM card which can be used at a monthly charge of merely a few Euros. In return, all updates to the system are available free of charge. Mr. Jamieson first started out by downloading a free application that helped him capture and monitor the milk yield of his cows.
Having control over your feed costs is an important step towards improving the efficiency of an agricultural enterprise.
Before beginning to use the DairyFeeder TMR system, Mr. Jamieson created reports and rations entirely by hand and had to pass them on to each and every one of his employees. "I had to rewrite reports completely by hand every time there was a change in the animal population or the rations. This whole procedure started to take up too much time at some point".
The DairyFeeder TMR system now helps Mr. Jamieson to save this amount of time and spend it in a more useful way. "It could not be simpler. Once you have punched in your rations, you can create reports with no effort at all. It is also a cinch to add more animals to the system if needs be. When you add new animals, the system will calculate in the same step which ingredient at what quantities I will have to include in the feed".
Since the DairyFeeder TMR system takes advantage of combined Bluetooth and cellular technology, the feed data is transmitted from the mixer wagon to the user account in real time.
It is usually not until they use the DairyFeeder TMR system that farmers realize how much they really spend on feeding their animals. The reports the system generates help cut down feed costs significantly. "I was flabbergasted when I realized how much we used to spend on fodder", admits Mr. Jamieson.
Since the animals on the farm are divided into three main groups, the mixer wagon needs to be capable of mixing a variety of components. "We feed a lot of straw to our cows and are pleased that our BvL mixer wagon is able to handle and chop it up thoroughly.
This farmer from the UK attached great importance to a compact design and maneuverability as the machine needs to be able to navigate through his narrow barns. "Given its capacity, the BvL mixer wagon is a highly compact machine that is even lower than the tractor pulling it".
Mr. Jamieson intends to add on another BvL solution that allows him to slightly raise the height of the mixer wagon container. This add-on is easy to install and will increase the capacity to approx. 20m3. Since this solution will merely increase the height of the mixer by a minimum, Mr. Jamieson will still be able to drive the machine into the barns. At present, Mr. Jamieson uses his 17m³ machine to feed his 140 cows with one batch of fodder mix.
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