New Delhi, Oct. 1 -- Kirkton of Beath Farm is a dairy and arable enterprise which started in 1894, run by David and Alice Thomson and son Fraser. The family were milking 135 cows and were experiencing the challenges of labour costs and pressure to spend time in the dairy while managing seasonal busy periods at their arable business. In 2016, they started looking at automation as a way forward which would be able to solve these problems.
"Our goals starting this project and the main reason to invest was to increase milking the cows from 2 to 3 times a day, increase capacity and run our dairy enterprise with reduced labour costs," says David Thomson. The project included refurbishment of their dairy and changing to cubicles from straw bedded...