Warren Jacobs (left) with his son Asher and partner Jenny.
The Jacobs family has been calling the Mt Compass district in South Australia home for 100 years — initially they started out growing vegies and milking a couple of cows.
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The family didn’t move into dairying until Warren’s Dad bought a local farm and started milking 120 cows back in the early 1950s.
Warren bought a neighbouring farm, Whispering Pines, in 1992, and converted it back to a dairy.
Over the ensuing years, both the herd and farm sizes have grown to include 440 cows on 324ha, and an additional dairy partnership milking 350 cows on a separate property.
The milking platform consists of around 202ha, which includes 60ha of irrigation.
Any surplus pasture is harvested for silage, but the majority of their hay and silage requirements are bought in.
The family has been supplying South Australian processor La Casa Del Formaggio for a decade.
The Jacob family has installed eight robots on their SA dairy farm in March 2024.
“They are an Italian cheese maker producing bocconcini, mozzarella, burrata, ricotta, haloumi, parmesan and mascarpone and they have looked after us as suppliers very well,” Warren said.
In March 2024, a 10-year dream was finally realised when the family — Warren and Jane, business partner Perrin and Kelly Hicks and son Asher and partner Jenny, started milking with eight Lely Astronaut robots.
The decision to install the robots was well-researched and included trips to Tasmania, Gippsland and northern Victoria, looking at other robotic systems.
It was also a financial one, made even more sound when they soon worked out the robots would save a couple of labour units and help reduce the physical workload.
The family has just passed its first anniversary with the new system, and while it was a bit of a learning curve at the start, Warren said the robots had delivered across every aspect.
The cows have taken to the new system and there have been many benefits including an extra lactation over the life of each cow.
“One of the biggest surprises has been how much better the cows now graze the pasture,” Warren said.
They have access to three different paddocks a day with a grazing window of about eight hours each.
They are voluntary milked and make up their own minds about where they go, but on average, Warren said they were milked 2.5 times a day.
He said the majority of the cows picked up the system in a couple of months.
“We put the heifers in with the cows about a month before they calve so they are familiar with how the system works, and from that aspect, it has all been pretty easy,” Warren said.
Warren said took some getting used to seeing cows coming and going from the shed at all hours of the day.
“In the past we had one herd that just went into one paddock, but now the cows wander past each other say hello for 10 minutes and then head off in different directions,” he said.
Warren said while the herd already had pretty good fertility, the robots had helped pick up cows on heat and that combined with a double ovsynch program, has seen fertility stable, with some gains on the second mating.
“The robots will also give our cows an extra lactation in their lifetime, requiring fewer replacement heifers, along with improved cow health, lower cell count and ultimately a better lifestyle for us with a work day starting around 7am and finishing around 4pm,” he said.
Each robot has the potential to milk 70 cows, and the family plans on increasing herd numbers in the future to around 500.
Warren said they recently installed an 80 kilowatt solar system to help with increasing power costs.
He is expecting the system to be cost positive in about two years.
“Our power usage has increased with robots, however, with more even milkings during the day, our power bill has been the same,” Warren said.
“The advantage is solar will help us with power usage during the day and battery storage should enable us to better utilise the power we generate.”
Warren said while the family was excited about the installation of the robots, it had been a tough year to invest with South Australia going through one of its toughest droughts on record.
“It has been dry since we put the robots in – a dry winter, spring and now autumn, has meant we have really had to rely on our irrigated area which has performed well,” he said.
“We have had to buy a lot of hay in, which has been expensive, and eroded some of our profit.
“The cooler weather has helped, but we are still waiting for a break and are anxious about what the coming year will bring.
“We are trying to be positive and are dry seeding and fertilising in the hope of a good year ahead.”
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