Modern Technologies for Robotic Cow Milking

Abstract

Increasing milk productivity and obtaining high-quality products are based on targeted breeding, balanced feeding of animals, and compliance with requirements of modern milking and livestock technology, and they represent one of the areas of improving milk production technologies in modern complexes. For efficient robotic milk production, the following indicators of dairy cattle should be taken into account: high milk productivity and milk flow, tightly attached udder, same-sized teats whose lower point should not be below 33 cm from the floor level, a 3 cm minimum distance between the rear nipples and 12.5–30 cm between the front teats, a 1.5–3.5-cm thickness of teats, rear teats that should be located 3 cm lower than the lower part of the udder, a 7 cm minimum distance between the front and rear teats of the udder, and a vertical deviation angle of the teats of no more than 30°. The main reasons for minor losses of milk during robotic milking can be milking of cows that do not have a full-fledged milk-giving reflex or cases when this reflex was inhibited at the beginning of milking as a result of putting the milking arm on the udder teats. It is shown that the milking frequency varies by day periods relatively weakly and decreases to a minimum only in the second half of the night during robotic milking, which is associated with a relatively late distribution of feed mixtures. It is noted that cows of all ages have almost the same number of robotic milkings, which is approximately two times.