Uncomplicated traffic when cows enter the parlour from a well-designed collection yard is important for a good milking experience.
system where you can reach up to 0.1 accuracy. “On a side- by-side parlour we also deliver individual feeding systems or lock feeding where all the cows get the same ration.” While many brands on the market offer milking parlours, Schut says, “Dairymaster has a higher vacuum during the milking phase and a lower vacuum in the rest phase. So we always say we milk like a calf drinks from a cow. A natural way of milking – with our milking technique, we are imitat- ing nature. There are advantages with this system. Firstly, our clusters will seldom fall off or have no liner slippage. The cluster hangs extremely well on the cow. You don’t need to have someone to pick up the clusters. Secondly, the lower vacuum in the rest phase will create a better teat end condition. The calf sucks quite hard but then it has to breathe and the calf releases.” Schut says that this mimick- ing of the calf’s sucking behaviour is better for teat blood circulation and creates less stress on the udder. “This really has an effect on the health of the cow and the teat condi- tion and increases the milk flow. Because of the more litres of milk per minute, we can milk a cow up to 50 seconds quicker than the competition,” he adds. “Quicker milking is of course nice for the milker, but actually if you have less time that the cluster hangs on a cow, this is always better for the teat, udder and cow health in general,” he says. Schut highlights the fact that the future of milking is col- lecting online data from the cow, and there is no doubt that investing in the right parlour or extending automation can make a farmer’s life easier and save costs in the short and long terms. Therefore, the level of automation depends on whether farmers are doing the milking or have employ- ees to do it. Considering all these points when it comes to parlour decision-making, Schut is clear about one thing:
“Measure as much as you can online. If you do this, you can react quickly to any problems, as access to data is immedi- ate. Having the right data available can speed up the pro- cess of making the right decisions and thereby help you manage a herd more efficiently.”
Dairymaster manufactures hi-tech dairy equipment, in the product lines of milking equipment, feeding equip- ment, automatic manure scrapers, milk cooling tanks and health and fertility monitoring systems. The company is headquartered in Causeway, County Kerry. For more info:
www.dairymaster.com
Small decisions when it comes to the parlour, which impact the comfort of animals and the milker alike, can make a differ- ence when at- tracting a labour force.
▶DAIRY GLOBAL | Volume 7, No. 5, 2020
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PHOTO: DAIRYMASTER
PHOTO: DAIRYMASTER
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