Habituation training for dairy cattle to milking boxes of new installed automatic milking system

摘要

Training of cows to enter the milking boxes of new installed automatic milking system at a farm was made. Forty-eight Holstein cows were transferred from the conventional stanchion-stall barn to the new free-stall barn. The automatic milking systemconsisted of an entrance gate, an alley and three milking boxes of tandem type. Cows were preconditioned to pass down the gate and the alley for five days. After the preconditioning period, cows were trained to enter the milking boxes for eight days andthe training observation was started. The herd were then divided into three groups, and the milking of each group started separately in the automatic milking system. The observed characteristics were the following: 1) duration of passing through the entrance gate, 2) duration from passing the gate to entering into a milking box, and 3) the score of training difficulty of putting the cows into the milking boxes. The number of training that was required for the cows to enter the milking box without any difficulties, i.e., a training difficulty score of one. was 10.8+-7.5 (M+-SD) times. However, the individual animals showed the large range of attempts (4-33 times) for achieving a score of one. The number of training needed for half the cows to achieve ascore of one was about 14 times. Analysis of variance was applied to determine the factors that affect training difficulty. The average score of training difficulty for each cow and the number of training necessary for achieving a score of one were regarded as the dependent variables in the statistical model. The independent variables were parity of cows, training group, and number of preconditioning trials. The results showed that the primiparous cows become familiar with the new automatic milking system faster than the multiparous cows, with the number of preconditioning also having a significant effect on the training difficulty of entering the milking boxes (P<0.05).