There are many hot days again this summer…

What a few hot days we had!
Did you and your company get through it well?
What went well and what didn’t?
And regarding what didn’t go well—we are bound to have more hot days; are there solutions for this?

Are your cows receiving sufficient cooler and refreshed air?
So, is exhaled air or “feed / barn” air not just being blown around? ..

Is there sufficient fresh drinking water?

Is it pleasant to be in the robot room with plenty of clean (fresh?) air?

Is the compressor receiving sufficient cool air? Are the filters clean?

Is the cooling unit receiving sufficient clean air?

Can you adequately ventilate the technical rooms containing vacuum pumps, etc.?

Can the young cattle find shade and cooler spots?

And when grazing: let the cows ruminate in the “coolest” spot!
So, in the barn in the afternoon.
In warm weather, from approximately 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM are not times to graze cows!

And do you have another good tip for your colleagues?
Let us know.

Three teats, fourth teat present or actually not?

Do we still need to properly configure whether the fourth teat is present or not on the VMS V300?

With the VMS Classic, we know that this is very important.

Whether you have entered “present or not present” for a three-teat cow: the VMS V300 has no trouble attaching her.

However, if the fourth teat is set to “present,” after milking it wants to disinfect all teats marked as present …

And if that teat is (almost) completely gone, it doesn’t see it and, after some searching, starts spraying “blindly” and making a circle. In doing so, the camera arm sometimes touches the leg, and the cow doesn’t like that at all. And neither will you, because it uses more disinfectant and doesn’t even land on the teats as precisely as you are used to…

So with the V300, for the three teats as well, make sure to correctly enter whether the fourth teat is actually present or not (anymore).

And of course: check occasionally if the spray is landing properly on the tip of the teat!
A little clogged and it sprays next to the teats….

Sharing experiences.

Occasionally, we receive questions such as:

• My somatic cell count won’t drop below 150
• My Germ count fluctuates a lot or is actually too high.
• My acidity level in milk is too high.
• I still have quite a few cows / heifers to collect.
• It takes a long time for the heifers to come in 3 times a day after calving.
• Colleagues have seen a much greater increase in milk production since getting the milking robot than we have?
• The number of milkings drops quite significantly after the cows go out to pasture.
• ………………………………..

Do you also have questions like these?

There is so much experience by now, and there are so many colleagues who don’t have these problems or have a solution for it!

Take your questions to colleagues, your advisor, or study meetings.

Of course, much of the information is already available somewhere on this website; your question can often be found using the search function.

And: Be open to solutions 😉

Grouping and Ungrouping.

With some lists it is very useful when you do not see the performance of the individual cows for an overview, but for example only the cows of lactation 1 and subsequent lactations or of certain lactation stages depending on each other. So that you can see how that couple of animals is doing on your farm.

It is very interesting to view the performance of both the animals you want as a group but also the individual cows or the entire herd in the same list.
And if you have indicated in DelPro which breed the cows have or which father then you can also easily Group on that.

You can easily do this by clicking on the right mouse button in the gray area where your choice, for example lactation number, lactation stages, …., is located and clicking on “Group by this column”. (View place and symbol in Dutch)
It becomes even more fun when you click on “Average” or “Sum” below interesting colums, again with the right mouse button. Then you can see how the results are per group.
Or how often a diagnosis occurs or how much of a medicine has been used.
And when you want to put it back to animal level, in the same place where “Group by this column”  was, it now says “Ungroup”

This is very useful for feed lists and production lists, but also for Diagnoses and Treatments.
And once you know this option, you will definitely use it more! Have fun!

Do you (ever) have an increased Germ count / Plate count ?

Then of course immediately contact your VMS technician / cooling tank technician.

But what can you do yourself in the meantime:

1. Check whether sufficient cleaning agent is used.
2. Is the (end) temperature of the cleaning high enough?
3. Is the milk filter replaced often enough?
4. Do you clean the rod around which the filter is placed properly?
5. Is the thread of the filter seal clean?
6. What is the water hardness (limescale), is it cleaned often enough with acid?
7. Do you always clean after each cow separation?
So even if it is not penicillin milk and / or a heifer with colostrum!
Does not always have to be a main cleaning.
8. If the robot is not too heavily occupied and no VMS visits for 30-45 minutes? => Cleaning!
Does not always have to be a main cleaning.
Summer day this is even more important!
9.  When the cows are in the pasture and there is no milking for a while? => Main cleaning!
10. Are the teat liners replaced regularly and are the milk hoses still good?
11. Is the pre-treatment cup and valve clean and working fine?
12. Is the robot room and everything that touches cups “workable clean”?