Pasture and automatic milking
In automatic milking (AM) systems, cows go to visit the milking unit, a robot, by themselves to get milked. Combining pasture with AM can be problematic. High quality grass and longer distances to the robot are factors that can make the cows less motivated to visit the milking unit. This can cause l...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Otro |
| Language: | Swedish Inglés |
| Published: |
2008
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://stud.epsilon.slu.se/12138/ |
| Summary: | In automatic milking (AM) systems, cows go to visit the milking unit, a robot, by themselves to get milked. Combining pasture with AM can be problematic. High quality grass and longer distances to the robot are factors that can make the cows less motivated to visit the milking unit. This can cause losses in production and extra work for personnel, who might need to fetch cows to the robot. An increased degree of synchronization in cows' behavior can cause periods in the day during which the robot is barely visited and periods where the cows have to spend considerable time waiting to be milked. Some useful methods to make the most of pasture in AM are; give good feed indoors at regular times, limit distance to pasture, strip grazing, limit pasture allowance to daytime and only give recently milked cows access to pasture. Fetching cows should be minimized so that they do not get used to it. Offering water in the pasture might increase the need of fetchings but could, on the other hand, increase the cows' welfare. Many farmers and experimental results have shown that it is possible to combine pasture and AM successfully. |
|---|