JOZ Scrapers, Manure Robots and Feed Pushers
Barn automation that does the jobs nobody has time for — designed around your shed, installed by our own engineers and serviced afterwards.
A Clean Floor Is a Cheap Vet Bill
Scraping is the job that gets skipped when the day runs out, and it is the one the cows pay for.
Feet stand in what is on the floor. Slurry softens horn, and soft horn is where digital dermatitis and sole bruising start. A passage that is scraped four times a day is a different surface from one scraped when somebody gets round to it — and the difference does not show up as a breakdown, it shows up months later in your lameness figures and your culling.
JOZ make the case in their own terms: they say automatic manure removal results in fewer hoof disorders. We would put it more plainly. A machine that runs to a timetable is not better than a person with a tractor. It is better than a person with a tractor who has already done a fourteen-hour day, which is the honest comparison.
The floor is half of it. The other half is what the feet walk through afterwards — see automatic footbaths.
The Original Job, Done Properly
JOZ have been building manure removal equipment for more than seventy years, and the scraper is still the answer for most sheds.
There are five in the range, and which one suits you is decided by the floor, the animals and the bedding — not by the price list. They run on rope, on sunken steel cable or on a steel manure chain.
Slatted floor scraper
Built specifically for slatted floors, where a standard blade has nothing to work against.
Delta scraper
For closed floors. A shaped blade that carries manure rather than smearing it along.
Flex scraper
A flexible blade that follows an uneven or worn floor instead of riding over the hollows.
Multi scraper
The workhorse for closed floors, built for long passages and heavy duty.
Combi scraper
Combination unit for sheds that need more than one blade profile to cover the passages they have.
Rope, cable or chain
Three drive options. The choice is about passage length, the loading and how much is in the floor already.
We come and look at the shed before quoting any of it. Passage length, falls, crossovers and where the slurry is going are the whole job; the blade is the easy part.
Barn-E PRO — It Collects, It Does Not Push
The most powerful robot in the range, for element floors, rubber floors and anything else solid.
This is the difference that matters and it is easy to miss. Most robots push manure ahead of them to a crossing point. The Barn-E PRO gathers it with a push bar, lifts it on a rotating intake and carries it away in a container, then drives to the discharge point and empties. Nothing is dragged the length of the passage and nothing is smeared past the cubicles.
It handles straw, sawdust and deep litter, which is where a lot of machines stop. Push width is 155cm as standard or 185cm extra wide, it carries up to 500 litres depending on that width, and it works at 6.5 metres a minute on an eleven-hour duty cycle. Wide manure alleys and collecting yards are not a problem for it.
Nano — Seventy Centimetres Wide
The newest and most compact robot JOZ build, for the passages nothing else fits down.
The machine is 70cm wide. That is the whole point of it: a narrow passage in an older shed, or a tight run behind a feed barrier, is exactly where a scraper is hardest to fit and where the floor gets worst. Scraping width is adjustable, so it suits wide alleys as well.
It carries up to 110 litres and can spray as it goes — 2.5 litres of water a minute, through jet or mist nozzles, to lift what the blade alone would leave behind on a slatted floor. Like the rest of the range it navigates on transponders, so it follows routes you set rather than feeling its way along a wall.
JOZ-Tech, the Third Robot
Between them the Nano and the Barn-E cover slatted, semi-closed and solid floors. JOZ-Tech is the answer for the ones that are none of those.
It is the robot in the photograph, and in the one at the top of the page: working a slatted passage behind a row of cows. Same transponder navigation, same principle of running to your routes and your times rather than to whoever is free. If your floor is an awkward one, it is worth asking about before you conclude that automation will not work in your shed — that conclusion is usually reached about a machine nobody measured for.
Moov 2PRO — Feed Within Reach at Three in the Morning
A feed pusher is not about feeding cows. It is about the cows that do not get to the barrier first.
Roughage gets pushed out of reach within an hour of feeding, and from then on the herd is eating what it can stretch to. The dominant cows are fine. The shy ones, the lame ones and the fresh heifers are the ones standing back — and they are the animals whose intakes you are actually worried about. A pusher working through the night puts feed back within reach of those cows, repeatedly, when there is nobody in the shed to do it.
JOZ go further and attribute higher intakes and higher production to it. That is their claim and we have left it in their name; what we will say is that less sorting and a calmer barrier are things you can see for yourself within a week.
Which Moov 2PRO, and What It Does on Its Own
Fully automatic, suits any barn, and comes three ways.
The standard version pushes. The second adds skirt lifters: JOZ say the drum lifts its skirt up to 70 mm, so a threshold or a change of level in the floor is crossed rather than stopped at, and slopes of up to 15 per cent are no problem. The third adds automatic door opening on top of that, so one machine can cover more than one building, or come in from a charging station outside, without somebody walking ahead of it.
It runs to a plan you set — every day, every other day, a delayed start, pause and play — and it navigates on transponders like the manure robots, so the routes are yours and there is no wall to follow. With internet in the shed the JOZ Management System lets you, and us, see it from a phone; without, the handset does the same job at the machine.
If We Installed It, We Look After It
Quoted on farm, fitted by our engineers, and covered by the same twenty-four hour, seven day call-out as the milking plant.
A scraper that stops is not an emergency on the same scale as a robot that stops — but a week of it is, and in the meantime somebody is back on the tractor doing the job they bought the machine to avoid. Eight engineers work from Springkerse in Stirling, with a second service centre at Ayr, and they carry a stock of spare parts. To ask about any of it, or to book a visit, there are two doors:
Ring Stirling
01786 474 481. The engineering office at Springkerse, Stirling. Ask about a machine, book a site visit, or order a part.
Email service
service@mccaskie.co.uk. For anything that can wait for a reply: a quote, a service booking, a question about something we fitted.
Once it is in, it is covered by the same twenty-four hour, seven day call-out as everything else we install. How that works out of hours, and who answers, is on service and call-out.
JOZ Questions
Who installs JOZ scrapers and manure robots in Scotland?
McCaskie. We quote, install and service JOZ barn automation from our engineering base at Springkerse in Stirling, with a second service centre at Ayr and eight engineers between them. Call-out runs twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Which JOZ manure robot suits my floor?
There are three. The Nano is for slatted and semi-closed floors and is only 70cm wide, so it fits passages nothing else will. The Barn-E PRO is for solid floors — element, rubber and the like — and copes with straw, sawdust and deep litter. JOZ-Tech covers the floors that are neither. We would rather come and look at the floor than answer that on the phone.
What is the difference between a manure robot and a manure scraper?
A scraper is a blade drawn along a passage on rope, cable or chain, fixed to the building. A robot is a free-moving machine that follows routes you set using transponders, so it is not tied to one passage and does not need a channel cut for it. Scrapers suit long straight passages; robots suit sheds where the layout is awkward or where you want particular areas done at particular times.
Does the Barn-E push manure along the passage?
No, and that is the point of it. The Barn-E PRO collects manure with a push bar, lifts it on a rotating intake and carries it in a container to the discharge point — up to 500 litres depending on the push width. Nothing is dragged the length of the shed past the cubicles.
Will a feed pusher actually make a difference?
It depends what your problem is. If feed is out of reach an hour after feeding, the cows that suffer are the shy ones, the lame ones and the fresh heifers — the animals whose intakes you are already worried about. A Moov 2PRO puts feed back within reach through the night when there is nobody in the shed. JOZ attribute higher intakes and higher yields to it; that is their claim rather than ours.
Is there a JOZ robot small enough for an older shed?
The Nano is 70cm wide, which is the narrowest in the range, and its scraping width adjusts. Narrow passages in older buildings are the usual reason a farm concludes automation will not work for them, and it is usually a conclusion about a machine nobody measured for.
Do you service JOZ equipment you did not install?
Our service and call-out covers the machinery we have installed. If you have JOZ kit that somebody else put in and it is not being looked after, it is worth a conversation, but we would rather be straight with you than send somebody to learn on your farm.
What happens if a scraper or robot stops at the weekend?
Ring Stirling on 01786 474 481. Out of hours the call is forwarded to the technician on call — one of our own engineers. Barn automation is covered by the same call-out as everything else we install.