Tenth deliverable out now

The tenth deliverable of the project is the second one of work package 10, 'Automatic milking and grazing'. Its title is 'Motivation of cows to visit the milking robot'.

This deliverable (D26) presents the results of a number of experiments in which different factors affecting milking frequency have been studied. Although some basic experiments have been performed indoors, focus has been on the pasture season and on the grazing situation. Factors of importance to milking frequency that are discussed are feed related factors, water supply, environmental factors and cow locomotion. Also results from experiments to study the learning process of cattle with the opbjective to teach the animals to respond to an individual auditory signal are presented. A cow-calling apparatus has also been tested during the pasture season to summon the individual cow to the milking unit. It is concluded that in order to succesfully combine voluntary milking with grazing it is necessary to have a keen interest in the behaviour of the cows and e flexible attitude to management so that measures can be taken to continuously adapt pasture allowance, supplementary feeding, grazing hours and other management tools in order to obtain the best results as the situation varies during the season.

Message date: February 18, 2003