Incomplete milkings in automatic milking systems
Date
2019Author
Masía, Fernando Miguel
Lyons, Nicolas A.
Piccardi, Mónica Belén
Balzarini, Mónica Graciela
Hovey, Russell C.
Garcia, Sergio C.
Metadata
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Automatic milking systems (AMS) rely on voluntary and distributed attendance of cows to the dairy facility throughout lactation. This generates variation in milking intervals (MI), defined as the period of time that elapses between two consecutive milking events, measured in hours. Farmers operating AMS need to manage variation in MI within and between cows. In AMS a robotic arm locates and attaches a cup onto each individual teat. Success of this task depends on several cow and equipment factors, including localisation and insertion of the teats, which is related to the amount of milk in the udder. Unsuccessful attachment of the cups to one or more teats, and premature cup removal, are some of the causes of incomplete milkings (Lyons et al., 2014). The aim of this work was to cluster cows according to the risk of having incomplete milkings and to characterize the groups regarding MI, peak yield (Lpeak) and days to peak yield (Dpeak).