Unning a dairy farm is labor-intensive. It requires farmers to accomplish backbreaking, repetitive, and monotonous physical tasks day and night, with low levels of motivation, but tremendous pressure to maintain good quality, product specifications, and eliminate contamination. Labor costs could reach a whopping 50% of the entire product cost. Into this arrives robotic milking machines as much-needed relief to boost production and profitability in of farming.
Technology today allows dairy farms to automate much of the complex and repetitive tasks, using robots, and provide more control and speed over the production and processing of milk.
One of the use cases of robotics and automation in the dairy industry is automatic milking systems (AMS), aka milking robots, which replace the practice of milking by hand. They provide greater flexibility of milking times and frequency than conventional milking systems, eliminating the need to milk cows at regular set times.
Each cow in a robotic milking platform gets an electronic tag that allows the robot to identify it when the cow enters the milking unit electronically. The robot reads the tag and provides a feed reward customized to the cow’s level of production and schedule. Then the robotic arms proceed to clean the teats, attach the milking cups on each cow.
Each quarter is milked individually, and cups are removed based on the milk flow from each teat, thereby minimizing the over-milking of each quarter. This type of advanced system milking can occur throughout the day and night, with limited human interaction.
The benefits of automatic milking systems (AMS) are far-reaching. Cost-cutting in terms of less workforce is the biggest advantage, as AMS doesn’t require too many people to operate or monitor. The milking frequency can increase up to three times per day. On a typical day, it can reach 2.5 times per day.
Improvement in cow health is another big outcome. AMS causes less stress on cows. Quarter-by quarter milking reduces the udder infections, and with less milk to store, the cow feels less stress on the udder and more comfort. The robot can monitor everything from blood in the milk, conductivity, to yield per quarter. The management of the herd becomes easy and efficient.
The world’s first robotic milking rotary was unveiled by Swedish dairy equipment company DeLaval at the farm at Quamby Brook, Tasmania, Australia. Featuring five robots, the rotary could reach the cow from the side and milk up to 90 cows per hour. With laser technology, the robots determined the location of the cow’s teats for cleaning and attaching the cups. Once the milking is complete, automatic liquid filling and finishing systems could get the product ready for the market.
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