The study was carried out at the Kungsängen Research Centre, Department of Animal Nutrition and Management, Swedish University of Agriculture Sciences, Uppsala. The technical development in dairy production has resulted in a housing system where feeding and milking is done automatically without human contact, a so called automatic milking system. The motives for utilising an automatic milking system, is to increase the animal welfare and to decrease the need for manual labour. However, the system does involve a change for the animals, among the effects is the deprival or the diminishment of a chance for synchronous behaviour and the animals have to agree among themselves in which order they use the feeding stations and the milking unit itself. How and if this affects the animals well-being and production is yet to be solved. A possible way to form an opinion on this, is to study the animals ranking order along with hormone profiles and production. The purpose of this work was to study the effect of low- vs.

The milk production has developed rapidly the last years. The milk production per cow is increasing and the production units are larger with an increasing number of animals and a decreasing number of workers. Many milk producers invest in automatic milking systems (AM) to meet this change. In these systems the cows can voluntary decide milking frequency and usually the milking frequency are higher than two times per day. But how does the milking frequency effect the composition of the milk? The aim of the present study was to study the effect of milking frequency on the milk composition and the milk fat quality.

This thesis consists of four case studies. The objective is to find out how to get a well functioning cow traffic in an automatic milking system. Different technical and building solutions are analysed and some adjustments are proposed for the DeLaval herd management software. Case study 1: Lactation chart comparison from traditional cow traffic and Feed First? cow traffic Case study 2: Farm A - a study of the precedence passage and the cow traffic Case study 3: Farm B ? an overview of the farm and their way of working Case study 4: Key factors ? how can we judge how well a VMS farm is working? Case study 1: Lactation chart comparison from traditional cow traffic and Feed First? cow traffic In this survey data is analysed from before and after rebuilding to Feed First? cow traffic. Lactation graphs are compared between traditional cow traffic and Feed First? cow traffic.

This project is based on my fathers farm which lays outside Löberöd, twenty kilometres south of Eslöv in Skåne. While my family for some time have thought about building a new milkingstable with AMS(Automatic milking system) I decided to compare the AMS with a conventional milkingstable. We are abit concerned about how many cows we should have in the new stable. Because of that I calculated with two different number of cows. I have compared three different types of milking stables: One alternative is 180 cows milked in a double eigth hearing bone milking stable. The second alternative is 128 cows milked with two DeLaval VMS-robots. The third alternative is 171 cows milked with three DeLaval VMS-robots. One salesman from DeLaval and one salesman from A-betong helped me to get marketprices on the milkingrobots, building, ventilation and prices on all the concrete. In all the costs labour is included. The rest of the costs are calculated in a softwareprogram called K-data 03 which is a program with predicted costs. The calulations from the program showed that the price in the milkingpit system was 51 000 sek per cow.

Robotic milking in Automatic Milking systems (AMS) is proposed to reduce manual labour and at the same time increase milk yield by increasing milking frequency. In order to increase milking frequency, it is essential to have well-functioning cow traffic. Investing in an AMS is a great capital investment for the farmer, thus it is of major importance to ensure maximal AMS capacity. This study investigated the effect of the traffic systems Feed First? and Free cow traffic with and without waiting area (WA) on cow performance and AMS capacity.

In some herds it has been observed that extremely short teats have become a problem; with a negative influence on the milking performance. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate to what degree the quality of the teats and the milk in cows with short teats is affected as compared with cows with normal teat length and furthermore if the milking performance could be improved by using a liner adapted to short teats. This study was divided in two parts. In the first part, it was examined if there were any differences between short teats and teats with normal length with reference to the milking performance, udder emptying, teat treatment, milk quality, and udder health. 11 pairs of cows were used and in each pair of cows one cow had teats shorter than 40 mm while the other cow had teats longer than 50 mm.

A totally mixed ration (TMR) is a mixture of all the necessary feed components for the cow. She will eat the exact same feed in every bite which will make the rumen pH more stable and always supply her with a constant proportion between roughage and concentrate. This will make it possible for the cow to eat more dry matter (DM) a day because the fibre requirements are fulfilled. If a part of the concentrate is given separated from the mixture it is called partly mixed rations (PMR) and is almost always used when using an automatic milking system (AMS). When using TMR and PMR it is important to have a high hygiene, be accurate when mixing the feed and to look after cows in a good and strict way. The aim of this study was to document different farms with PMR in an AMS to see which routines they have and how they are managing their production.

The purpose with the study was to find a pattern in the behaviour of dairy cows which could be related to their social rank. A behavioural study was conducted at the University Cattle Research Centre (Kungsängen) in Uppsala, Sweden. The study included 12 lactating dairy cows, 6 high ranked and 6 low ranked. The cows were housed in a loose housing barn with an automatic milking system (AMS) to which they had access 24 hours a day. During the experiment the total number of cows in the barn was 46.

Protein is an important component in various milk products and has a crucial role in the final quality. Excluding non-protein nitrogen, bovine milk contains about 3.3% protein whereas about 80% of this fraction consists of casein. There are four major members in the casein family: ?s1-casein, ?s2- casein, ?-casein and ?-casein. Proteolytic enzymes are the cause of degradation of the economically important milk proteins.

Automatic milking systems (AMS) are part of a growing trend in Sweden and the number of milk-producing farms is decreasing rapidly. One main reason for the AMS is its ability to facilitate work for the farmer. The effects of introduction prior to calving have not been documented earlier and farmers are not in agreement, however they seldom see a problem with the introduction. The aim of this report is to find differences between two groups of heifers, where one group is trained i.e. introduced to the AMS before calving and the other group is introduced after calving.

Earlier studies of musculoskeletal problems with milkers working in milking parlour operators have shown that it is a physically demanding occupation. The extremities that are most exposed are neck, shoulders, hands and wrists. Those systems that have been studied in present cases are fishbone and some tandem barns. There have been changes in the working environment during the past ten years. The mechanisation has been developed for the better with automatically removers of the milking units and vertically adjustable floors in almost every daily milking barn. In other hand the milk production are more industrialised and more related to stress today.

Ravelsmarks gård have now reached the stage when there are few options for the future. The options are either a construction of completely new farm buildings or a winding up of the milk production. Present on the farm today there is 65 dairy cows plus recruitment. 44 cows stand in long-stalls and 20 cows stand in short-stalls. The objective of this study was to examine the profitability of a completely new cowshed. In order to get costs for investments different milking systems and equipment for feedstuff have been compared. The systems in the investment budget have been chosen on recommendations from advisers, salesmen and on the basis on what is suitable for the farm. One system where a so-called mix feeder wagon is used for the roughage seemed to be best suited for Ravelsmark. The different prices obtained for the manure well show that there are possibilities to decrease the investment costs.

This work has been done to develop a plan for a future dairy barn at theGästgivaregården and to show the space needed for cows and replacement heifers. Itwould also show the storage that will be needed. The design was largely based on resultsfrom studies on six different farms, but also the facts that are taken from research papersand articles in order to compare theory with practice. Because some farms only whereinterviewed by phone I have used a query form to obtain comparable resultes.The aim is to build a new barn with Automatic milking. I've drawn a milking stable for120 milking cow and replacement heifers with the capability to house up to 140 milkingcows if the farm would expand in the future.Calculations of feed amounts and space requirements have been made to see how manyhectares are needed to supply the cows and replacement heifers with feed and to knowabout what size of storage space is required.The investigations made in this writing are to answer questions about the AMS-unit`sposition and how to best maintain a good health status in the herd.

In Kenya the Maasai pastoralists have based their livelihoods on dairy production and the production goal is to maintain a sufficient milk supply throughout the year. The pastoral dairy production has two vital characteristics; breeding and milking. Traditionally, breeding is the men?s responsibility, while milking is the duty of women. Depending on this partition of chores between men and women, they also have different management routines, ambitions and strategies regarding the milk production.

Mastitis, inflammation in the udder tissue, caused by S. aureus is a big problem in dairy cattle production. It causes suffering for the cow and curing or replacing the infected cow is costly for the farmer. It is known that beef cattle also suffer from mastitis caused by S. aureus.