Sergei Yasevin, zootechnician, milking unit manager of «Promin», graduate of the faculty of technology of production and processing of livestock products in Nikolaev State Agrarian University

Milking is not the most important procedure at the dairy farm. In order to get maximum quality milk from the cows just to have animals, equipment and staff is not enough. You need properly to organize performance in the parlor, follow-up operations and evaluate performance.

Parlor of the type «carousel» for 40 cows in «Promin» was established in autumn, 2006. Since then it has worked smoothly. The work of the dairy unit is organized into three shifts of 8 hours., 4-4.5 hours of which are for milking, 3.5-4 hours for washing equipment, and additional tasks as well as lunch. Shift and milking starts at the same time, respectively, at 5:00, 13:00, 21:00. Every shift milks from 930 to 960 cows, or 230-240 head per hour (5.7 - 6.0 speed setting per hour). A design capacity is 1200 head per shift. So we have a certain reserve to increase the heard.

The wheel makes one circle for 9 min. This is more than enough to prepare and to milk out thecows. Eighty percent of animals are milked out for 4-5 minutes, twenty - for 6-8 minutes. However, there are cows in a herd with a high milk flow: for one minute they give five pounds of milk. The overall rate of milk on the farm is 2.5-2.7 kg / min.

Automated milking has several advantages that enable fast, taking into account the individual characteristics of each cows and without harm to their health to get high quality milk. For example, the milking machine is configured to automatically disable vehicles with a decrease in the rate of outflow of milk and 0.6 kg/min. Incidentally, this is one of the factors which helps to avoid over milking, but at the same time fully to milk out. Automation defines and smooths the frequency of oscillation and the vacuum level (even if the air leaks where) for each cow individually, depending on the speed of the flow of milk. There is also a function of massaging. If a cow does not give milk more than a minute, the devices begin to "jump", mimicking the motion of the calf, and thus stimulate the secretion of oxytocin and milk respectively.

It is important correctly to pick siers to cows, paying attention to following indicators of selection indexas the structure of the udder and its attachment to get the cows, better adapted to machine milking. You also need time to check the condition of the mammary glands of cows and cull unsuitable for automated milking cows.

Read the full version of the article in the magazine «Milk and Farm» № 4 (7), December 2011