Too many kick-offs?

It’s normal for a few cows to occasionally kick off a teat cup. But when does this become more than normal?
If more heifers have calved, it’s logical that the kick-off percentage is slightly higher.
Less than 2% is okay, but it shouldn’t exceed 5% too often!
The number of kick-offs can therefore fluctuate considerably.
Which cows kick off most often can be found in the “Milking performance” list.

What are the possible causes?
Common causes include flies or a batch of heifers, for example, from a particular bull.
But sometimes a milking robot doesn’t connect properly, not correctly from the center of the teat. With multiple milking robots, you’ll see differences in kick-offs from one robot to the next.
In that case, it’s easy for a technician to correct this.
But claw problems, especially on the leg on the side where the robot connects, also cause more kick-offs or stepping on a hose. Or the VMS arm may have difficulty reaching the udder teats.
A feeder setting that is too narrow or too wide can lead to more kicking from restless cows.
And of course, the quality of the teat liners, a clean camera that connects smoothly, the feeding speed, pre-treatment cup, and temperature are also important factors.
It’s also interesting to see whether cows, besides new heifers, also older cows, and perhaps even cows in later lactation, still kick. Then we look at factors like teat quality, how and with what you fill the boxes, what you use for disinfection, the vacuum level, and the settings for the take-off from the milkcup.
Also the feeding speed and the feed intake per milking session. Have they finished their feed before milking begins, for example?

Clean concentrate silos.

A feed consultant showed me a photo of a concentrate silo that had been cleaned. That was shocking!
This silo had quite a bit of residue from old feed and mold….
If this is in the feed silo, bits occasionally break off. And that gets into the system.
Or into the augers, causing blockages? Or it gets into the robot, and then the cows get some of it too. And that’s very bad…

Concentrate silos are often refilled (well) before they are empty, and then old feed can sometimes stick to the walls.

When was the last time you checked that your feed silos were completely clean?

Dear reader,

To make searching easier you can read the Tips per category on these pages.

So for information about, for example, udder health or concentrate supply, you can find which Tips have been written about this per category since 2010.

There are Tips that are old and Tips that fit into multiple categories.

The latest published Tips can still be found below and on the right side.
On the phone you will find the categories on this page under the last 5 Tips.

– Click here for Tips in categories –

Once again about Germ Count.

Following a previous Tip of the Month about the Germ count / Plate count (June 2025), I received another tip from a technician:

Never replace the milk filter after the tank has recently been emptied and cleaned!
There will still be very little milk in the milk cooling tank, and that milk will blow around and can dry against the inner wall.
This can also cause an increased germ count!

This obviously does not apply if you have a buffer tank.
Nor does it apply if you have a duo filter.

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!