The Pellon company is identified on the market with the automation of feeding for both pigs and cattle. A manufacturer of feeding automation solutions for farm animals created an opportunity to learn about the operation of systems on Swedish farms.
It started in 1966 in Finland, with a forge in the field. One of the three brothers who raised pigs welded the fences for his pigsty himself. He did it so well that neighbors asked him to prepare fences for their buildings. Then the offer included chain manure removal systems and automatic feeding systems. For almost 70 years, Pellon Group Oy has become a leader in the field of livestock building equipment technology, it has three branches around the world – in Poland, Sweden and Germany. Sales to over 20 countries around the world are carried out through a network of authorized dealers.
In the 1980s in Finland, Pellon introduced the first wet feeding systems for pigs. Currently, this feeding system is used in 100% of Finnish pig farms. Although Pellon initially developed into pigsty equipment, currently the barn equipment department occupies most of the company’s production. In the last decade of the 20th century, the first automatic systems for feeding cows with concentrate and roughage were introduced into production.
On February 6-9, together with the managing director of the Polish branch of Pellon – Pellon sp. z o. o., Grzegorz Kędzierski, as a group of 11 breeders from eastern and central Poland, we had the opportunity to visit two Swedish farms and see facilities for dairy cows built by the company Ydre-Grinden, the Swedish branch of Pellon Group Oy.
The brand’s motto is “from idea to finished building”. Due to the fact that Swedish regulations do not take into account building permits, the company can design barns, build them and fully equip them with: fences, drives, slurry scrapers, slurry robots, automatic feeding systems, feed pushing robots and brushes ( apart from milking systems – Sweden is dominated by two brands, Lely and Delaval).
However, farmers have a lot of formalities related to welfare requirements. In its factory, Ydre-Grinden produces fences according to customer orders, tailored to the needs and requirements of the Swedish market. On average, they design and equip turnkey approx. 10 barns a year for an average of 90 cows.
Application of solutions in the field
The first facility we had the opportunity to visit was built in 2014. There are 75 cows here, mainly of the Swedish Red breed. To obtain higher milk yield, the breeder breeds cows of the native breed with semen from Holstein-Friesian bulls. There is one Lely milking robot in the barn. The feed kitchen with a stationary 12m3 tank for mixing roughage is located at the top of the building. There is a large screen above the car that shows the number of weighed components. Next to the feed wagon there is a concentrate feed hopper.
The mixed portion of TMR is fed onto a conveyor belt, from where it is transported via a conveyor system to the feed aisle (there is also a scale on the belt). In the barn, the conveyor belt is located at a height of approximately 2 meters above the feed table. The finished TMR moves on a belt, from where a special scraper drops the finished portion of feed onto the feed table. In this way, fresh feed is provided to the cows 6 times a day, in appropriate portions. Thanks to this, cows are more willing to consume TMR, which is always fresh, they are more willing to come to the feed table, there are fewer undereats, and the farmer does not have to shovel the feed several times a day. In addition, a big advantage of the automatic feeding system is that the farmer only needs to ensure that the containers are filled with feed components. Pellon is responsible for preparing and distributing the feed.
The second barn, for 150 Holstein-Friesian cows, has been equipped with the Pellon automatic feeding system since 2006. Here, too, feed is provided six times a day, and a conveyor belt runs over the entire feed aisle. There is a computer controlling the feeding of feed in the barn, where you can set all parameters related to feeding of feed (hours, frequency). The feed kitchen is located outside the building. The cows are milked by three Lely milking robots. The average annual productivity of the herd is 12,600 kg of milk.
Automation is forced by the employee market
Swedish barns, especially the new ones, are mainly equipped with automatic milking systems. Such a system is forced by the labor market – there are no employees willing to milk cows, even though wages are high compared to Polish conditions (an employee on a farm receives approximately PLN 60 per hour of work). In January, the purchase price of milk was less than PLN 2/liter, with production costs similar to those in Poland.
Swedish farmers don’t have it easy. Most of the country is mountainous, completely different from what we are used to in our country. Grass silage dominates here as roughage, although in recent years, despite the unfavorable climate, more and more maize is being grown for silage. Interestingly, in Sweden it is compulsory to pasture cows in the summer. Breeders put cows out to pasture every day, 4 months a year.
In recent years, Pellon has made huge investments in China and Italy, in facilities for over 1,000 cows. The feed conveyor belts at the facility in Italy are 230 meters long.
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