Robots have replaced humans at a Congupna dairy.

Where milking cups and teat spraying was once carried out by human arms, mechanical ones now do the job, while motorbikes and working dogs have been made redundant as cows volunteer to be milked at their own time and leisure.

Les Sandles has recently installed two Lely Astronaut robot milkers, the latest innovation to dairy farming, for his herd of 93 Holsteins, which he is planning to build up to 130.

Mr Sandles' Congupna farm is only the second in Australia to use the robotic milkers, the other is in Rosedale in Gippsland.

"He's got a fairly elite herd that he enjoys and he thought this was a way to keep the herd and hopefully maximise their production and make some money out of it," farm manager Stephen Blain said.

The milkers were installed in December last year and despite a few teething problems in setting the systems up, Mr Blain is confident the milkers will provide financial, labour and production benefits.

"We expect to make more money by labour savings and producing more milk," he said.

"And there's also a quality of life which may appeal to some smaller farms in the area . . . I'm the one that is here most of the time and I try to leave after lunch each day which is pretty good for a dairy farmer."

Current production levels are 26 litres/cow/day, however Mr Blain said they expected the cows to be producing well above 30 litres in the future.

Mr Blain said the fact that the robot milkers were so new to Australia meant they were going through a learning curve to establish the new system.

"We're still sorting it out, we really didn't have much of an idea about setting the fencing up and there has been a few little dramas setting it up because they're so unusual in Australia.

"We've probably made a few mistakes along the way but since then the cows have settled in well and production is going okay."

One of the problems they are continuing to work through is getting the cows to volunteer themselves for milking with about one-third of the herd still not coming in regularly enough.

"For most of the cows it has worked (the volunteering) but probably a third of the cows don't go in enough, but I think that's just time" Mr Blain said.

Lely Australia and New Zealand dairy products manager Juergen Steen said the main benefits of the robotic milker was that the cows could milk themselves, and the labour savings.

"The lack of availability of labour is driving the move to automation," Mr Steen said.

While Lely declined to disclose the the robotic milker's price, Mr Steen said while the initial cost might be high, the long-term savings on labour costs meant the milkers were a competitive product.

"It is not cost prohibitive," he said.

"Automation is always a higher initial investment but it is quite competitive in the long-term."

To see a video of the Astronaut robot milker in action go to www.countrynews.com.au