1Dairy Science Group,School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science,University of Sydney,Camden,NSW 2570,Australia.
2Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture Dairy Centre,University of Tasmania,Burnie,Tasmania 7320,Australia.
Animal. 2019 Jul;13(7):1529-1535. doi: 10.1017/S1751731118003117. Epub 2018 Nov 21.
Achieving a consistent level of robot utilisation throughout 24 h maximises automatic milking system (AMS) utilisation. However, levels of robot utilisation in the early morning hours are typically low, caused by the diurnal feeding behaviour of cows, limiting the inherent capacity and total production of pasture-based AMS. Our objective was to determine robot utilisation throughout 24 h by dairy cows, based on milking frequency (MF; milking events per animal per day) in a pasture-based AMS. Milking data were collected from January and February 2013 across 56 days, from a single herd of 186 animals (Bos taurus) utilising three Lely A3 robotic milking units, located in Tasmania, Australia. The dairy herd was categorised into three equal sized groups (n=62 per group) according to the cow's mean daily MF over the duration of the study. Robot utilisation was characterised by an interaction (P< 0.001) between the three MF groups and time of day, with peak milking time for high MF cows within one h of a fresh pasture allocation becoming available, followed by the medium MF and low MF cows 2 and 4 h later, respectively. Cows in the high MF group also presented for milking between 2400 and 0600 h more frequently (77% of nights), compared to the medium MF group (57%) and low MF group (50%). This study has shown the formation of three distinct groups of cows within a herd, based on their MF levels. Further work is required to determine if this finding is replicated across other pasture-based AMS farms.
在 24 小时内保持一致的机器人利用率可最大限度地提高自动挤奶系统 (AMS) 的利用率。然而，由于奶牛的昼夜采食行为，清晨的机器人利用率通常较低，限制了基于牧场的 AMS 的固有容量和总产量。我们的目的是根据基于牧场的 AMS 中的挤奶频率 (MF；每天每头动物的挤奶事件) 来确定奶牛在 24 小时内的机器人利用率。2013 年 1 月至 2 月，在澳大利亚塔斯马尼亚州的一个由 186 头奶牛 (Bos taurus) 使用三个 Lely A3 机器人挤奶单元组成的单一牛群中收集了挤奶数据，共 56 天。该奶牛群根据研究期间奶牛的平均每日 MF 分为三个相等大小的组 (n=62/组)。机器人利用率与 MF 三个组和一天中的时间之间存在交互作用 (P<0.001)，高 MF 奶牛的挤奶高峰期在新鲜牧场分配后一小时内，其次是中 MF 和低 MF 奶牛，分别为 2 小时和 4 小时后。高 MF 组的奶牛在 2400 到 0600 之间也更频繁地挤奶 (77%的夜间)，而中 MF 组和低 MF 组分别为 57%和 50%。本研究表明，根据 MF 水平，在一个牛群内形成了三个不同的奶牛组。还需要进一步的工作来确定这一发现是否在其他基于牧场的 AMS 农场中得到复制。
