Milanesi Stefano, Donina Dario, Chierici Guido Viviana, Zaghen Francesca, Sora Valerio M, Zecconi Alfonso
Associazione Regionale Allevatori della Lombardia, Via Kennedy 30, 26013 Crema, Italy.
One Health Unit, Department of Biomedical, Surgical and Dental Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Milan, Via Pascal 36, 20133 Milan, Italy.
Animals (Basel). 2024 Sep 26;14(19):2789. doi: 10.3390/ani14192789.
Automatic milking systems (AMSs) are revolutionizing the dairy industry by boosting herd efficiency, primarily through an increased milk yield per cow and reduced labor costs. The performance of milking machines, whether traditional or automated, can be evaluated using advanced vacuum meters through dynamic testing. This process involves scrutinizing the system and milking routine to identify critical points, utilizing the VaDia™ logger (BioControl AS, Rakkestad, Norway). Vacuum recordings were downloaded and analyzed using the VaDia Suite™ software under the guidance of a milking specialist. Access to data from AMSs across various manufacturers and herds facilitated a retrospective study aimed at describing and comparing key milk emission parameters for different AMS brands while identifying potential mastitis risk factors. Using the proper statistical procedures of SPSS 29.1 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA), researchers analyzed data from 4878 individual quarter milkings from cows in 48 dairy herds. Results indicated a significant variability in milking parameters associated with quarter milk yield and AMS brand. Notably, despite AMSs standardizing teat preparation and stimulation, this study revealed a surprisingly high frequency of two major mastitis risk factors-bimodality and irregular vacuum fluctuations-occurring more frequently than in conventional milking systems. This study, one of the few comparing different AMS brands and their performance, highlights the crucial role of dynamic testing in evaluating AMS performance under real-world conditions.
自动挤奶系统（AMS）正在彻底改变乳制品行业，主要通过提高每头奶牛的产奶量和降低劳动力成本来提高牛群效率。无论是传统挤奶机还是自动挤奶机，其性能都可以通过先进的真空计进行动态测试来评估。这个过程包括使用VaDia™记录仪（挪威拉克斯塔德的BioControl AS公司）仔细检查系统和挤奶程序，以确定关键点。在挤奶专家的指导下，使用VaDia Suite™软件下载并分析真空记录。获取来自不同制造商和牛群的AMS数据有助于进行一项回顾性研究，旨在描述和比较不同AMS品牌的关键乳汁排放参数，同时识别潜在的乳腺炎风险因素。研究人员使用SPSS 29.1（美国纽约州阿蒙克的IBM公司）的适当统计程序，分析了来自48个奶牛场的奶牛的4878次个体季度挤奶的数据。结果表明，与季度产奶量和AMS品牌相关的挤奶参数存在显著差异。值得注意的是，尽管AMS使乳头准备和刺激标准化，但这项研究发现，与传统挤奶系统相比，两种主要乳腺炎风险因素——双峰性和不规则真空波动——出现的频率高得出奇。这项研究是比较不同AMS品牌及其性能的少数研究之一，强调了动态测试在评估实际条件下AMS性能方面的关键作用。
