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.

How much time does a cow use a VMS in a week?

For efficient VMS utilization it is important to know which cows use a lot and which cows use little time from the milking robot. We have therefore compiled a list where you can see exactly which cow consumes the most time per visit.
But it becomes even clearer if we look at which cow uses the most time over a whole week!

The average cow uses about 2 hours of a robot per week. The differences are quite big.
The cows that use the most time are sometimes over 4 hours and those cows therefore use 2x as much time as your average cow. You would expect that this has to do with many liters and many visits per cow. But at the top are not only cows that give a lot of milk! Cows that milk very slowly or that are difficult to connect, or that are not well adjusted, set, are also (too) high on this list.
These cows significantly reduce the capacity of your milking robot!

Which cows use a lot of time and which is undesirable?
Can anything be done about this? Are these cows worth it?
Or just don’t inseminate again…?

The list was originally intended to see cows with rapidly rising MDi even earlier, but the columns about time use are a nice extra ?
The MDi number, but especially the color differences in this list, you can immediately see which cows have a rapidly rising MDi at the last milking.

Do you want this list? Then send an email to harry@harrytuinier.nl

I will tell you in my reply mail how you can conveniently put this list in DelPro on your computer.

Manure plate.

More and more often we see that a stainless steel container has been neatly placed around the manure plate behind the VMS.
This looks clean and tidy.

However, it is then more difficult to check whether the manure plate is still doing its job properly, you cannot see whether the manure plate is moving properly when a cow is in the VMS.

Especially on farms with VMS Classics, we do not have to explain how important the proper functioning of the manure plate is. But even with the V300 it still has a function.

So make sure every day that the manure plate moves well, the spring still does its job, the rods are straight  and the manure plate is not weighed down by manure. These are all reasons why he moves less, the cow suffers from the manure plate and it is more difficult for the robot to connect.

Milking speed per bull.

Livestock improvement organizations not only want to know the production of the daughters of their bulls, but also ask about milking speed, behaviour, etc. .

Now this can easily be found in DelPro, but per cow and not per father.
DelPro has many lists and almost anything can be made for wishes or clear overviews tailored to your company.

We have also made a list to view the milking speed of the offspring per bull. With possibly incomplete milkings, who kicks off most often, etc.
But for those who milk with VMS Classic the Performance Index is also included .
That is a figure that indicates how quickly the cow is connected.
(See previous Performance Index Tip)

A list with information per bull is especially interesting when there are more daughters of the same bull.

And it is of course important that the fathers are entered in DelPro!

Do you want this list?
Just an email to harry@harrytuinier.nl