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Research article2010Peer reviewedOpen access

Technical note: Variation in daily milk yield calculations for dairy cows milked in an automatic milking system

Nielsen, Per Peetz; Pettersson, Gunnar; Svennersten Sjaunja, Kerstin; Norell, Lennart

Abstract

An accurate estimation of the daily milk yield of dairy cows milked in an automatic milking system is not obvious because of variations in milking intervals and frequencies. Daily harvested milk varies substantially, and developing a method to be used for estimating daily milk production is of great importance. Three calculation methods (simple, semiadvanced, and advanced) were used. The simple method calculated rough daily milk production by summing up the yield per day. The semiadvanced used yield in combination with time since last milking to calculate the milk production per hour between milking; an average of the milk production per hour over the day was calculated and multiplied by 24. The advanced method calculated the milk production from midnight to midnight by using information about yield and time since last milking to calculate the exact milk production. The results show a clear preference for the advanced calculation method because the variation [variation for the advanced method = ln(1.79) for first lactation and ln(2.28) for later lactations] between days was reduced significantly (3 to 4 times lower compared with the simple method). Variation in daily harvested milk can be used as a management tool.

Keywords

automatic milking system; yield estimate; calculation method

Published in

Journal of Dairy Science
2010, Volume: 93, number: 3, pages: 1069-1073
Publisher: AMER DAIRY SCIENCE ASSOC-ADSA