Invited review: Udder health of dairy cows in automatic milking

Abstract

Automatic milking (AM) is increasing in modern dairy farming, and over 8,000 farms worldwide currently use this technology. Automatic milking system is designed to replace conventional milking managed by a milker in a milking parlor or in tie stalls. Cows are generally milked more frequently in AM than in conventional milking, and milking is quarter-based instead of udder-based. Despite improvements in the milking process and often building of a new barn before the introduction of AM, udder health of the cows has not improved; on the contrary, problems may appear following conversion from conventional milking to AM. This review focuses on udder health of dairy cows in AM, and we discuss several aspects of cow and milking management in AM associated with udder health. Finally, adequate management methods in AM are suggested. According to several studies comparing udder health between automatic and conventional milking or comparing udder health before and after the introduction of automatic milking in the same herds, udder health has deteriorated during the first year or more after the introduction of AM. Automatic detection of subclinical and clinical mastitis and cleaning the teats before milking are challenges of AM. Failures in mastitis detection and milking hygiene pose a risk for udder health. These risk factors can partly be controlled by management actions taken by the farmer, but AM also needs further technical development. To maintain good udder health in AM, it is imperative that the barn is properly designed to keep the cows clean and the cow traffic flowing. Milking frequency must be maintained for every cow according to its stage of lactation and milk production. Careful observation of the cows and knowledge of how to use all data gathered from the system are also important. "Automatic" does not mean that the role of a competent herdsman is in any way diminished.

Sensitivity and specificity of a hand-held milk electrical conductivity meter compared to the California mastitis test for mastitis in dairy cattle

“…The accuracy of MER (or MEC) is generally considered to be poor (Hovinen and Pyorala, 2011) but the improvement with CMCT might not be as large as commonly suspected. A reason for the discrepancy could be that a typical definition of mastitis is based on increased SCC (Pyorala, 2003) and the fact that CMCT is an indirect measure of cell counts (SCC).…”

Invited review: Sensors to support health management on dairy farms

“…The algorithm produces information about the cow's health by determining changes in the sensor data. Examples include electrical conductivity and color to measure changes in the milk to help the farmer detect clinical mastitis (Hovinen and Pyörälä, 2011), acceleration to measure differences in walking behavior to detect lameness (Pastell et al, 2009;Chapinal et al, 2011) or to measure differences in activity to detect estrus (Saint-Dizier and Chastant-Maillard, 2011), and rumen pH to measure acidity of rumen fluid to detect metabolic problems (AlZahal et al, 2007b). The third step uses this information in a decision support model that uses economic information and possibly other information from the farmer or an advisor.…”

Prevalence of mastitis pathogens in milk from clinically healthy cows

“…Unlike the clinical form of the disease, subclinical mastitis is hard to recognise, and for this reason it may cause significant losses in milk production. Moreover, subclinically infected cows may represent a source of particular pathogens that can be spread via automatic milking systems (Barkema et al 2009;Hovinen and Pyorala 2011). Therefore, to evaluate the prevalence of subclinically infected cows and their significance as a potential source of mastitis pathogens, we analysed in this study individual milk samples from animals expressing no clinical signs of the disease.…”