April 2025:

Good for teat locks and healthy rumens.

It is still important that cows stay “on their legs” for at least 20 minutes to half an hour after they come out of the VMS before they lie down. This is very important for closing the teatlock muscles under the teats. And thus ensures considerably less risk of mastitis.

But it is also important for the rumen that they eat enough roughage and drink water before and after the concentrate feed in the milking robot or concentrate feed box, and therefore do not lie down immediately.

Therefore, make sure that the cow has something to do after the robot visit. Offer her fresh and clean (heated?) water and often provide fresh food at the feed fence where she feels invited before she could go to a lying place.

And, of course, she also stays on her legs longer with healthy claws.

 

March 2025:

Hygiene and work routine.

Shaving or burning udder hair, trimming tails to keep them cleaner, every farmer who works with milking robots knows that.
Clean camera glass ditto.

Dry boxes and clean udders / cows, it is good for hygiene but also for the capacity of a milking robot.

The V300 attaches so well that we are becoming a bit more relaxed about this.

And now that field work is starting again, it is important to remain strict about this!

Isn’t it remarkable that one farmer with the same production the milking robot uses half a minute less per milking session…?!?

And that means room for 10 – 15 extra milkings per VMS per day!

 

December 2019:

Mini-milker.

Although we would like to see a cow being milked in the milking robot as soon as possible after calving, it is simply not always possible. Either the cow is too labile after calving, or too sick, or the distance is too far, or for whatever reason it is not possible or not safe.

Fortunately there is a mini milker. This is a useful device, but it milks the most vulnerable cows in your company.

Pay extra attention to ensure that this mini milker is clean, and that on the mini milker as well as on VMS, the rubber liners, pulsation, milk hoses, etc. are well cleaned, function well and do not give an extra chance of infection or poor milking’s to these vulnerable cows.

 

April 2018:

Milking after incomplete milking.

When a cow isn’t milked properly by a milking robot, giving 50% less than expected, she’ll have the “Milkpermission” to be milked sooner. The standard setting is set to 0 hours/minutes meaning that the cow can get milked immediately after the initial milking.

In practice, it often results in more incomplete milkings. That is why we advise to milk after an incomplete session no sooner than 2-4 hours, depending on the company’s average production per day. For example: if you milk, on average, 30 liters per day you could set the setting to 2 hours. However, if you milk less (20 liters), then set it to 4 hours.

There’s more: In the list under “Milking Info”: “Milking Performance” it is possible to sort cows on the amount of incomplete milkings (second to last column). Then the cows at the top of the list have the most incomplete millkings. It is advised to increase this possibility by a couple of hours or even turn it off for this cow!

Especially in the case that the cow has more than 3 milkings a day, and too many incomplete.

This can be adjusted on her Cowcard by “AMS Settings” in Milk Permission => Milking Conditions.

Or does she have only three good milking teats?

Or is a different setting better?

 

September 2015:

Teat cleaning cup:

The Teat cleaning cup from DeLaval is often one of the reasons to choose DeLaval VMS.

The method of cleaning and stimulating:

“It cleans like our mother and stimulates like a calf” is what the designers had in mind, and it turned out perfectly.

We must admit that we have not always cleaned as consistently in a milking stall and certainly not stimulated as consequent as our teat cleaning cup does.
And the dirt and the first rays are always separately drained from the milk collector.

But does the teat cleaning cup get the chance to deliver an excellence job?

• Is the outside also clean so the cup can’t move dirt and bacteria around?
• Is the rubber head not worn or torn?
• Does it make enough and firm strokes?
• Is there no kink and no tension on the hose?
• Does it sometimes miss a teat, or often?
• Is there too much space on the gripper?
• Is the water temperature good?
• It is wise that you take it daily out of the cartridge and clean it.

When you take him out and clean daily there’s minima bacteria and dirt on it, and in the same time you check that “your employee” can deliver true craftsmanship!