Milking Cows
Milking cows is an exercise that is undertaken everyday on most farms. Efficient and effective milking affects both farmer lifestyle and farm profitability in a number of ways.
Milking practices can affect milk quality. This is important because milk quality is a component of milk pricing, and thus affects farm profits. Milk of high quality is also essential for the production of high quality dairy products.
Dairy Australia has a major focus on helping farmers reduce the incidence of mastitis and the somatic cell count of their milk. This is done through the Countdown Downunder project, as well as via an ongoing research program.
Established in 2001, CowTime is a national project enabling farmers to objectively review their entire milking process. It then identifies cost-effective changes that farmers can make to improve the ease and efficiency of milking, optimise their use of labour, and increase farm productivity.
Dairy Designs provides a range of information to help farmers when planning the construction of their next dairy. A comprehensive information package includes photos, dairy plans, performance measures and contact details for a range of well-designed swingover, double up and rotary dairies.
Many dairy farms spend much more money on energy use in the dairy than they need to. With nearly half the energy used in a dairy going towards heating water, there are opportunities for making profitable changes in hot water use. There are also other simple things farmers can check to ensure dairies are using energy efficiently.
Many farmers are looking to reduce water consumption in their dairy. In 2000, a survey found that water use in dairy sheds varied from under 2,000 L to over 38,000 L of water per cow each year. This large variation indicates that there are opportunities to save water and costs on many farms.
Automatic Milking
In Europe, over half of new milking machine installations involve automation (robotic milkers). It is milking technology with great potential for improving labour use efficiency. In Australia there is a research program into automation, along with some commercial robotic milkers.
For more information, download Management Guidelines for pasture-based AMS farms - please note, this is a large file (3MB), it may take some time to download.
Automatic milking systems typically require major changes to other aspects of the farm system. The Future Dairy project is defining systems suitable for use in the Australian dairy industry where grazing large herds on pasture is common.
To view a video on the Future Dairy automatic milking installation click here.