Principles and effectiveness of operation of the robotic cows’ milking system

Abstract

At the present stage of development of dairy cattle breeding, the choice of machine milking technology is a priority task in the operation of any dairy complex, and the study of its impact on cows productivity when using modern milking equipment is timely and relevant. The purpose of the work was to study the technology of robotic milking of cows and evaluate the effectiveness of its application under the conditions of the dairy complex for industrial milk production. It has been found as a result of the carried out research that the use of a robotic milking machine is possible with the free stall housing of cows with their free access to the milking parlor with the installation of Lely Astronaut milking robots. The farm uses fl ow-sections technology: the first section is the milk production, the second section is for calving and the third section is for dry cows. The installation provides the individual approach to milking the animal when assessing the health of the udder, namely, separate milking of the udder quarters, which allows, when mastitis is detected, to dump milk from the diseased udder quarter into a separate container. Assessment of udder health is carried out by changing the physical properties of milk in case of disease, i.e. electrical conductivity. At the same time, the system evaluates the quality of milk and collects data on each animal individually and on the quarters of the udder. Each of the two robots installed on the farm is capable of milking 65 cows. 123 cows located in a room where the voluntary milking system is installed serve only 2 people per shift. Robots allow us to save on milking facilities, reduce staff maintenance costs and increase the salaries of service personnel. The payback of the equipment – a robotic installation for milking cows Lely Astronaut will be with the productivity of animals ranging from 6000 to 6500 kg on average per cow for about 3 years.