Supplementary feeding at milking and minimum milking interval effects on cow traffic and milking performance in a pasture-based automatic milking system

Abstract

In extensive pastoral dairy farming systems herds graze 12 months of the year with the majority fed a near-100% pasture or conserved pasture diet. The viability of automatic milking in these systems will depend partly upon the amount of supplementary feed necessary to encourage cows to walk from the pasture to the milking unit but also on the efficient use of the automatic milking system (AMS). This paper describes a study to determine the importance of offering concentrate in the milking unit and the effect of minimum milking interval on cow movement and milking performance in a pasture-based AMS. The effects of feeding rate (FR0=0 kg or FR1=1 kg crushed barley/d) and minimum milking interval (MM6=6 h or MM12=12 h) on cow movement and behaviour during milking were studied in a multi-factorial cross-over (feeding level only, 4 weeks per treatment) experiment involving 27 mixed-breed cows milked through a single AMS. Feeding 1 kg barley in the milking unit resulted in a higher visiting frequency to the pre-selection unit (FR0=4.6 visits/d, FR1=5.4 visits/d, sed=0.35, P<0.05) and a higher yield (FR0=22.5 kg/d, FR1=23.6 kg/d, sed=0.385, P<0.01) but had no effect on milking frequency (FR0=1.6 milkings/d, FR1=1.7 milkings/d, sed=0.04, NS). Minimum milking interval was the major factor influencing milking frequency (MM6=1.9, MM12=1.4 milkings/d, sed=0.15, P<0.01). The absence of feeding in the milking unit had no negative effect on behaviour during milking or the number of cows that had to be manually driven from the paddock. The results show that automatic milking can be combined with a near-100% pasture diet and that milking interval is an important determinant for maximizing milk harvested per AMS.

The effect of concentrate allocation on traffic and milk production of pasture-based cows milked by an automatic milking system

“…Milking frequencies (2.37 ± 0.02/day in HC and 2.35 ± 0.02/day in LC) observed in our study were comparable with those reported by Spörndly and Wredle (2005). Other studies performed in fully grazing systems by Jago et al (2007) and Lyons et al (2013b) in New Zealand and Australia, respectively, recorded less milkings/day: 1.7 milkings/cow per day (Jago et al, 2007) and 1.5 milkings/cow per day (Lyons et al, 2013b). Milking permission time does not seem to be a limiting factor as cows were allowed to be milked after a 4-h interval, similar to Lyons et al (2013b), while in Spörndly and Wreddle (2005), the time elapsed between two milkings must have been greater than 6 h. In the present study, high concentrate level increased the robot visitations but also caused more RM in HC.…”

“…Effect of minimum milking interval was studied in a pasturebased AMS by Jago et al (2007). They concluded that larger MI than 12 h could be targeted without negative impact on MY.…”

“…One such incentive is feed, which can be provided by giving new pasture allocation (Lyons et al, 2013a), by offering more concentrates (Bach et al, 2007) or by modifying timing of feed allocation (Lyons et al, 2013b). Numerous studies have shown discrepancies regarding the effects of the level of concentrates given during milking on cow traffic: some of these find no effect on milking frequency (Bach et al, 2007;Jago et al, 2007) while in more recent studies (Lyons et al, 2013b) returns to the robot were improved by pre-milking concentrate supplementation. Effects of concentrates supplied during milking by the AMS have been studied indoors by Halachmi et al (2005) and by Bach et al (2007).…”

Differential response to stocking rates and feeding by two genotypes of Holstein-Friesian cows in a pasture-based automatic milking system

“…However, only few published studies have explored the realized benefits of AMS in pasture-based farms (Jago et al, 2007;Lyons et al, 2013a).…”

“…However, the milk response to changes in milking frequency could be highly variable both within and between cows and feeding systems (Utsumi, 2011;Lyons et al, 2014). In previous studies, the location and amount of partial mixed ration (PMR) (Sporndly and Wredle, 2004), the timing of PMR feeding (Lyons et al, 2013b) or the level of concentrate offered in the AMS (Jago et al, 2007) had little or no effects on the number of milkings/day and milk production. Conversely, the walking distance to pasture and both the size and frequency of pasture breaks/day can change the grazing behavior of cows and the subsequent distribution of milkings at the AMS ( Ketelaar-de Lauwere et al, 2000;Lyons et al, 2013a).…”