2 Dec 2021
Vet advises farmer delegates that milking starts hundreds of yards from the parlour and that little changes can make a big difference.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
Milking herd on the way to parlour
Persuading farmers to make small changes to milking routines can have a big impact on cow flow and milk let down on dairy farms, webinar delegates heard.
During a Farming Connect webinar, vet Tom Greenham, of Advance Milking, offered advice on improvements to make milking more efficient and better for cow udder health.
Describing slow as the new fast for droving, Mr Greenham said: “Milking starts hundreds of yards away from the parlour; how we fetch cows in has a profound effect on how they let their milk down and influences their milking behaviour.
“Leave enough time to fetch the cows for milking; if we rush them, they will get stressed and will slow down. People assume that if you want cows to move forward, you walk forward with them, but in actual fact, it slows them down; if you walk in the opposite direction, it speeds things up.”
He added: “If we have to go out into the collecting yard to fetch cows, all the cows will change their orientation. We need to get to a situation where we don’t have to go out because fetching just breeds more fetching.’’
Specific advice offered to farmers included screening exit races from entry races and from the collecting yards, so cows moving in different directions did not see each other; and angling corners on the approach to the parlour, so no places existed for the cows to get stuck. He recommended 45° to 50° angles to funnel cows into the parlour.
He added the collecting yard should be designed to allow sufficient space per cow: a cross-breed will need around 1.5m2, and a Holstein and other larger-framed animals 1.8m2.
Farming Connect is delivered in Wales by Menter a Busnes and Lantra Wales, and is funded by the Welsh Government and the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.
