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Tip of the Month

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Tip of the Month – November 2025

Most interesting lists at the front of the Attention Board.

On the left side of the Attention Board, there’s a block containing the lists Delaval thinks are the most important of all available lists.
But you and I often have different opinions about that!
From the entire arsenal of lists offered by DelPro or created by you or your advisor, you can choose which ones you actually want to see there.
How can we customize these to our own preferences?
When you click the yellow Lists tab, you’ll find all available lists.
By right-clicking the list you want, you’ll get many options, including “Add to Attention board.” We’ll confirm this. You’ll then be asked which chapter you want to add it to, or you can create a new chapter.
An icon will then appear next to that list.
For lists that also have such an icon but that you never view, you can remove that icon in the same way.
Then we return to the Attention Board. Let’s refresh it first!
Above the block with preferred lists, you’ll see a faint “V” sign. Click on it.

This will display all lists with an Attention Sign icon.
The list you added will now be listed, but it still needs to be checked.
Only the checked lists will be shown when you click the “V” above the block again.

 

An example of what it might look like (in Dutch):

Daily checklists
Weekly checklists
Monthly checklists
Fertility checklists

 

Tip of the Month – October 2025

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?

Layout Tip of the Month by category

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 –

Tip of the Month – September 2025

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?

Tip of the Month – August 2025

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.