The effects of floor system on production in automatic milking systems

Abstract: Based on the results of a previous Master's thesis, the hypothesis was that farms with slatted floors have lower milk production, both per milking unit and per cow, than farms with solid floors in automatic milking systems. A survey with questions about the farm, the flooring system, cleaning and claw trimming routines was sent to 123 farmers with DeLaval's VMS and additional farmers with DeLaval VMS were invited to the survey via social media. If the farmers had more than one group of milking cows, they were asked to respond for the best-functioning group. The farmers’ re-sponses were analysed for variances in milk yield and claw health on the farms. The result showed that farms with slatted floors did not have lower milk yield than farms with solid floors. In contrast, the milk yield per cow was higher if the floor in the area in front of the VMS was grooved than if it was not (32.7 kg and 30.1 kg respectively, p = 0.035). Of the 38 farms that had renovated the floor in the free-stall alley, milk yield per milking unit was higher in those who had installed new rubber mats than in those who had grooved the floor (2232 kg and 1921 kg, respectively, p = 0.027). The flooring system and how the floors were cleaned were shown to have a greater impact on the claw health. Claw health, according to the veterinarians reports to Ko-kontrollen (CHv), was better in farms with solid floors in the area in front of the VMS than in those with slatted floors (CHv = 0.77 and 2.38, respectively, p = 0.016). In a comparison of floor cleaning routines in the alleys, the results showed that claw health was better in alleys with slatted floors than with solid floors that were cleaned with automatic scrapers. In farms where the feed alley was wider than 3.5 meters, the claw health according to the claw trimmers reports to Kokontrollen (CHt) was better than on farms where the alley was narrower than 3 meters (CHt = 4.93 and 11.77 respectively, p = 0.027). The claw trimming strategy did not affect either production or claw health. How-ever, the use of claw bath had a positive effect on the amount of milk produced per cow (32.9 kg and 29.6 kg respectively, p = 0.00) but according to the veterinary re-ports, claw baths had a negative effect on claw health (CHv = 1.3 and 2.5 respec-tively, p = 0.046). However, this could be due to the fact that farms with poor claw health install claw baths as a preventive measure. According to the reports to Ko-kontrollen from both veterinarians and claw trimmers, claw health was better on or-ganic farms than on conventional farms.