Automatic milking

Automatic milking is the milking of dairy animals, especially of dairy cattle, without human labour. Automatic milking systems (AMS), also called voluntary milking systems (VMS), were developed in the late 20th century. They have been commercially available since the early 1990s. The core of such systems that allows complete automation of the milking process is a type of agricultural robot. Automated milking is therefore also called robotic milking. Common systems rely on the use of computers and special herd management software.

The milking process is the collection of tasks specifically devoted to extracting milk from an animal (rather than the broader field of dairy animal husbandry). This process may be broken down into several sub-tasks: collecting animals before milking, routing animals into the parlour, inspection and cleaning of teats, attachment of milking equipment to teats, and often massaging the back of the udder to relieve any held back milk, extraction of milk, removal of milking equipment, routing of animals out of the parlour.

Maintaining milk yield during the lactation period (approximately 300 days) requires consistent milking intervals, usually twice daily and with maximum time spacing between milkings. In fact all activities must be scheduled around the milking process on the dairy farm. Such a milking routine imposes restrictions on time management and personal life of an individual farmer, as the farmer is committed to milking in the early morning and in the evening for seven days a week regardless of personal health, family responsibilities or social schedule. This time restriction is exacerbated for lone farmers and farm families if extra labour cannot easily or economically be obtained, and is a factor in the decline in small-scale dairy farming. Techniques such as once-a-day milking and voluntary milking (see below) have been investigated to reduce these time constraints.

To alleviate the labour involved in milking, much of the milking process has been automated during the 20th century: many farmers use semi-automatic or automatic cow traffic control (powered gates, etc.), the milking machine (a basic form was developed in the late 19th century) has entirely automated milk extraction, and automatic cluster removal is available to remove milking equipment after milking. Automatic teat spraying systems are available, however, there is some debate over the cleaning effectiveness of these.

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