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Shorter Milking Times

If you spent too much time in the dairy this morning, you may be interested to know about a new research project that has started at DPI Ellinbank.

By Department of Primary Industries - 1st August 2006 - Back to News

The new Shorter Milking Times project is looking at how milking routines can be applied in a range of dairies.

Over the past five years, researchers at DPI Ellinbank have been examining different techniques to get cows to milk faster – thereby improving cow throughput through the dairy.

Rob Greenall, Director of the National Milk Harvesting Centre, says that the industry is aiming for a 20% improvement in milking labour productivity and increasing the number of cows that can be milked in an hour by each milker is a way to achieve this.

"The number of cows that can be milked in an hour is generally limited by the capacity of the labour or the capacity of the equipment to milk them," says Mr Greenall.

"When we look at the equipment side, the main bottleneck is in the time it takes for the milk to be extracted from individual cows."

Researchers at Ellinbank have shown for the first time that the speed of milking can be substantially increased without compromising yield or udder health in Australian dairies.

The most interesting thing about the new Shorter Milking Times techniques is that it does not mean that the milkers have to work harder nor is new equipment required.

Reducing the milking time comes about by reducing the time that the cluster is attached, but is only an advantage if the milkers are able to keep up with the equipment.

It is this relationship - between the equipment and the milker’s work routine - which lies at the heart of this new study.

DPI Scientist Tim Clarke is leading the research program and has been working with local farmers to see how Shorter Milking Times technology is best applied in a range of different shed types.

"Most farmers think that the easiest way to increase the number of cows being milked in an hour is to increase the size of the shed," says Mr Clarke.

"But significant improvements can usually be made by limiting milking times of slow milking cows and changing the routine to streamline the workflow."

Shorter Milking Times not only aims to make the milking faster – but make it simpler and less stressful too!

Over the next few months the research team will be working with CowTime to convert the practical tips from the case study farms into guidelines about how to best apply the new milking techniques in different types of dairies.

These will then be taken around Australia and become the next topic for the CowTime program scheduled for release early in 2007.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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