How quickly do your heifers get over three milkings?

It is very important, and also significant, that your heifers quickly reach more than 3 milkings per day after calving.

You can see this under “Animal” and then click on the Lactation Overview under Herd Charts. For this overview on the right, only check the two checkboxes for the milkings, see picture.

If all goes well, older cows that are already familiar with the robot will have over three milkings per day within a week.

Heifers still have to learn it and so it can take longer.
The sooner they are above 3 milkings, the better.
That depends, among other things, on this:

• How healthy and vital are they after calving?
• How soon after calving do you bring them to the robot?
• How much time do you put into learning
• What is the occupancy rate at the robot(s)?
• How much space is there around the entrance of the robot, can they access it if older cows are also walking around in the (waiting) area in front of the robot?

Daily cleaning, also slides.

Daily cleaning and checking of the milk cups, hoses and teat clean cup also includes rinsing / brushing and checking the slides, the guides, along which the milk hoses are pulled up and down.
Dirt also easily accumulates here, making it increasingly difficult for the robotarm to get the cups  to the right place.
This can easily cause incomplete milkings!
And of course, keep track of the rubber flap that always catches the milk cups.

Cleaning the camera?
Technician’s tip: Fold up a piece of kitchen roll the size of the camera glass, soak it with a little acid and “stick” it to the glass, let it sit for 2 – 3 minutes, then wipe off and rinse the camera well.

Clean teat liners.

When the milking robot is on a flat floor and there is no pit for it, for example, it sometimes happens that during the back-flush, which is the rinse after each milking, the teat cups, or actually teat liners, touch the ground.

That place cannot always be kept clean all day and night, so it is not very hygienic.

A solution is to put something simple here that ensures that the teat cups do not touch the ground and that is easy to keep clean.

Teach heifers for calving barn system and routes?

Especially with controlled cow traffic, it can be useful to get the heifers before calving used to the routes, habits and rations in the barn with dairy cattle.
But if, for example, they are already fed in the milking robot, they will be even more frightened by the robot arm after calving, with the result that they are more reluctant to visit the robot during the first few days.

So learning the routes and any selection gates is enough.

Take them out of the dairy group at least two weeks before calving, then they should be able to prepare for calving in peace, preferably in a straw pen / calving area, and not have to worry about bossy cows in the dairy group.

Stress in waiting area.

It is ideal if a waiting area behind the milking robot has ample capacity to receive cows that can be milked in about an hour.
So approx. 8 or more per robot.

But it’s no fun to be a cow and being in the waiting area for an hour (or longer…)  !

This most often happens with cows that are frightened, new, recently calved, in pain, or are bothered by something or don’t like being in the robot.

Make sure that these cows in particular are in the waiting area for as short a time as possible.
Stress before milking should never last long, these are bad experiences and will prevent the cow from coming and walking on her own next time.