Teaser feed at milking affects voluntary cow traffic in AMR

A recent study at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences showed that teaser feed in AMR influenced cow behaviour. Introducing teaser feed improved voluntary cow traffic, reduced time in the driveway, time to enter, and the number of cows to fetch. It also reduced the variation between cows in all estimates. These effects were still evident after a few weeks.

While concentrate feeding in the milking robot DeLaval VMS™ is standard, not all Automatic Milking Rotary, AMR, have in-bail feeding.

Cow motivation to enter the AMR voluntarily can have a large effect on cow traffic and labour costs related to the milking process.

Researcher Dr. Emma Ternman and her master student Elin Ratcovich studied cow behaviour in relation to teaser feed in Lövsta, the research herd at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.  

A summary ofthe results was recently published in Elin’s thesis Voluntary cow traffic in AMR – Epsilon Archive for Student Projects (slu.se).  The observed effects demonstrated that even small amounts of teaser feed can lead to longer lasting improvements of cow traffic for a smoother milking process.