In the dairy industry world wide, several hundred types of liners are used to milk dairy cows. The enormous amount of liner types with different characteristics in size, form, consistency and other design and manufacturing characteristics indicate that no ‘best’ liner has been identified in the last 60 or so years since machine milking has become the common method for milk harvesting. Mechanica...

Milking dairy cows four times daily (4×) instead of twice daily (2×) during early lactation stimulates an increase in milk yield that partly persists through late lactation; however, the mechanisms behind this response are unknown. We hypothesized that the acute mammary response to regular milkings would be transient and would involve different genes from those that may be specifically regulate...

The population of farms using automatic milking systems (AMS) has grown from the first installation a dairy farm in the Netherlands in 1992 to more than 8000 milking units on more than 2400 farms today The vast majority of these farms are in north-western Europe, with the Netherlands having the largest installed base and Scandinavia showing the fastest growth rate in the past few years (Lind, 2...

: Friesian-type dairy cows were milked with different machine settings to determine the effect of these settings on teat tissue reaction and on milking characteristics. Three teat-cup liner designs were used with varying upper barrel dimensions (wide-bore WB = 31.6 mm; narrow-bore NB = 21.0 mm; narrow-bore NB1 = 25.0 mm). These liners were tested with alternate and simultaneous pulsation patter...

The objective of this study was to assess the presence of a Listeria monocytogenes-containing biofilm in milking equipment as a potential source of bulk tank milk contamination on a dairy farm where milk contamination had been previously documented. Samples were collected from milking equipment and milking parlor premises on 4 occasions and analyzed for the presence of L. monocytogenes. Pulsed-...

Milking frequency is known to affect milk production and lactation persistence in dairy cows. Despite this, the mechanisms underlying this effect are only partially understood. Previous work in dairy cows examining increases in milk yield due to increased milking frequency have identified changes in apoptosis and expression of genes regulating cytokine signaling. In addition, changes in mitocho...

The use of PCR tests as diagnostics for intramammary infections (IMI) based on composite milk samples collected in a non-sterile manner at milk recordings is increasing. Carryover of sample material between cows and non-aseptic PCR sampling may be incriminated for misclassification of IMI with Streptococcus agalactiae (S. agalactiae) in dairy herds with conventional milking parlours. Misclassif...

in this research in order to estimate genetic parameters for milk yield at different milking times for holstein cows of razavi khorasan, a total of 180,462 monthly test day records belonging to first lactation cows calved from 2000 to 2009 were utilized. the records were analysed by a random regression test day model. in the model, the fixed effects of contemporary group of geographical locatio...

milk and fat yields in 3x and 4x milking schedule in holstein cows of iran were investigatedusing 374170 milk and fat yield test day records measured on the 1st and 2nd lactions of 54580 dairycattle coming from 205 herds. the records had been collected from 2007 to 2009 by the iraniananimal breeding center (iabc). the results indicated that an increases in the milking frequency from3x to 4x inc...