Management, expenses and economic efficiency of Automatic milking systems by evaluation of several years practical use

The objective of this study was the analysis of management of Automatic milking systems (AM-system) after several years practical use, the registration of working hours requirement and the expenses for milking as well as the economic efficiency in relation to conventional milking parlours. The evaluation took place in the experimental farm Groß Kreutz for two single box systems of type “Astronaut” over four years. The milking capacity per box and year amounted to 500.000 kg. On the average 53.4 cows per box were milked. The milking frequency per cow and day was 2,69. The kind of cow traffic, the year, the month and the number of cows per milking box influenced the milking frequency. The number of cows per box should not exceed 53 to achieve the aimed frequency of more than 2.7. Daily yields of 32 kg milk per cow and a milk flow of 2.3 kg/minute are necessary to reach a yearly capacity of more than 600.000 kg milk per box. The measurement of working hours requirement resulted in 56 % reducing in relation to three times milking respectively 35 % reducing to twice daily milking in a herringbone parlour. These results were smaller when additional time to milk unsuitable cows for an AM-system was taken in consideration. The yearly working hours requirement for milking in AM-system including additional time for milking unsuitable cows was 6.3 hours lower than for three times milking in a herringbone parlour. Fetching cows to the milking box needed 29.2 % of whole working hours for milking in the Automatic milking system. This time can be reduced by changing the cow traffic from free to guided. The analysis of expenses in the experimental farm resulted in 3.1 ct/kg more expenditure in relation to a herringbone parlour when 500.000 kg were milked per single box and year. The higher costs of AM-system are reduced to 1.9 ct/kg when lower working hours requirement were taken into account. The most importance to improve economic efficiency have reducing working hours requirement, increasing milking capacity and the effect of AM-system on milk production. The disadvantage of costs by using AM-system in relation to conventional parlours is 1 to 2 ct/kg by realistic improvements in this fields. This agrees with other investigations.

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