Research Article

Analysis of the number of cow visits to the milking robot

Honorata Kozłowska, Anna Sawa, Wojciech Neja

1. Acta Sci. Pol. Zootechnica, 12(3), 2013, 37‒48

Abstract. Based on data obtained using T4C herd management software from three farms equipped with milking robots, analysis was made of the effect of herd, age of cows, stage of lactation and milk production level on the number of visits to the milking robot and the proportion of different numbers of these visits. GLM and FREQ procedures of the SAS package were used for statistical analysis. The visits ended with 3.0 milkings and 2.6 refusals on average. The number of visits ending with milking decreased with advancing age and lactation, and increased with increasing milk production level. Among primiparous cows, 48% of the cows milked 3 times and 28% of the cows milked 4 times a day. Among multiparas, most cows milked 3 times (39%) and 2 times a day (37%). Most of late lactation cows (56%) milked twice, and in the other groups three times daily milking formed the largest proportion (around 45%). Considerable differences were found in the milking frequency depending on milk production level: among lowest yielding cows (≤ 20 kg milk) as much as 58% milked twice, and among highest yielding cows (≥ 50.1 kg milk) as much as 55% milked four times. The relatively high proportion of 5 refusals among the highest yielding cows (18%) and also among cows until 251 days of lactation (23-33%) should direct breeders’ attention to the proper balancing of diets for these cows.

Keywords: dairy cows, milking robot, milking frequency, daily milk yield, cow category