Machine milking, like a good marriage, is an exercise in compromise. Obsession with one goal at the expense of the others is seldom the optimal solution. The main goals of machine milking are to remove the available milk from each cow's udder quickly and completely, without slipping or falling, with minimum discomfort to the cow and minimum damage to her teats. Balancing these goals requires co...

Background (paraphrased narrative from the herd owners): "We started milking in 1982 after purchasing cows to start our herd. At the beginning our herd average was 12,000 lb. In 1987 we remodeled the barn by putting in comfort stalls, a pipeline milking system, and faced the cows to the center of the barn. Milk production then was up to 17,000 lb. We had some trouble with the small pipeline tha...

BACKGROUND Having a poor teat-end condition is associated with increased mastitis risk, hence avoiding milking machine settings that have a negative effect on teat-end condition is important for successful dairy production. Milking-time testing (MTT) can be used in the evaluation of vacuum conditions during milking, but the method is less suited for herds using automatic milking systems (AMS) a...

The objective of this study was to identify factors associated with bulk milk coliform count (CC). Dairy farms (n=10) were visited once weekly on sequential weekdays over a period of 10 wk. During each visit, in-line drip samplers were used to collect 1 milk sample from 2 points of the milk line (between the receiver jar and milk filters, and after the plate cooler). During the same period that...

Potential risk factors for Ureaplasma diversum in the vaginal mucus of 1,238 dairy cows were included in a multivariate logistic regression model, based on the cow level (i.e., granular vulvovaginitis [+GVV], yearly milk production [4500 kg or more], pregnancy, predominance of Bos taurus [+Bos Taurus], score of corporal condition [at least 2.5], concomitant positivity for Escherichia coli [+E.c...

The measurement of the milk electrical conductivity (EC) during mechanical milking has been widely studied for mastitis detection on cows because its improving of welfare and animal health, although research about small ruminants is scarce. The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of three commercial conductimeters to be used during mechanical milking of small ruminant halves, espe...

Short-run and long-run technical and allocative efficiencies were computed for 395 New York dairy farms using data envelopment or nonparametric procedures on 1990 Dairy Farm Business Summary data. The farms were, on average, more allocatively efficient in the short run than in the long run, but were more technically efficient in the long run than in the short run. Stanchion barns were as effici...

Grazing dairy cows milked by an automatic system (AS) experienced mild heat stress (HS) periods twice during the summer. The daily temperature humidity index (THI) during these periods were higher than 72. Milk production, as well as milking frequency, rumination time and milk fat to protein ratio (F/P) during these periods were compared with adjacent periods with mean THI of 61. The daily milk...

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of clinical mastitis and somatic cell count (SCC) in six dairy herds which had different milking management and hygiene conditions. Four hundred thirty one Holstein Friesian cows were used in the study. The herds were classified to be good (Group 1, n=2), medium (Group 2, n=1) or bad (Group 3, n=3) according to milking management and hygiene...