Multy farm's move to robotic milking on Ear to the Ground this week

A Multyfarnham dairy farm's transition to a robotic milking machine features in Thursday night's episode of Ear to the Ground.

Joe Mulvaney's farm in Ballindurrow recently made the switch to one of the Mullingar based firm Lely's robotic milking machine.

For years the cattle on Joe’s farm have been lining up day in day out to be milked in his small parlour. Recently he took the decision to install one of Lely's robotic milking machine's to do the heavy work for him.

While Joe loves the new system, his cows aren’t as sure. Darragh Mc Cullough visits the farm on the day that Joe switches from the parlour to the robot, as he introduces his cows to the future of farming, with some interesting results.

Speaking on the programme, Joe tells Darragh that it may take his animals a bit of time to get used to the new system.

"They are individual cows and they are going to have to find their own way this new robot. They are going to have to figure it out too. It will be interesting to see how they sort themselves out," Joe said.

Thursday's episode airs at 7pm on RTÈ One and will be repeated Sunday at 1.10pm.