Research on cow traffic in facilities with automatic milking systems

摘要

If cows are milked with AMS (Automatic milking systems), the motivation of cows to move for milking voluntarily is of great importance. Otherwise, they need to be driven, but for that additional labour force needs to be attracted. There are two factors that influence the willingness of cows to visit AMS: correct and balanced feeding, as well as rationally organized cow traffic in the barn. The purpose of the study was to compare two kinds of cow traffic: free traffic, when the cows can move freely in the feeding and recreation zones, as well as controlled (forced) traffic, when the movement of cows from one functional zone to another is regulated. The research was done in a commercial farm, where for different groups of cows both traffic systems were used-free, as well as controlled driving. Two groups of cows with a similar number of lactations and analogous average milk yields, but different driving systems were selected. The research was conducted within a period of two months. For the research, the data stored in the herd management system were used, as well as the time necessary for driving the "lazy "cows (which did not visit the milking robots in due time) was taken. The research shows that with controlled driving compared to free traffic, repeated visiting of AMS by already milked cows decreases almost four times, but as a result of it the useful loading of AMS essentially improves. Besides, the labour consumption necessary for driving the "lazy" cows decreases almost two times.