On some dairy farms milking time can account for up to 33% of the working day, while on others it is significantly less.
Although herd size has increased on many farms, the milking parlour has not followed suit – leading to significantly longer milking times on some farms.
To reduce the amount of time you spend in the pit – and also the amount of time cows spend standing and waiting to be milked – there are some changes you could consider.
It is important to remember that the last cow milked has spent all that time standing on a concrete floor.
Milking parlour
You should aim to have between seven and eight rows of cows for a one-person operation.
Having sufficient units will greatly reduce the amount of time that you and your animals spend milking, and waiting to be milked.
Increasing the number of units in a milking parlour is a significant investment, so making some other changes could be looked at first.
These could include installing automatic cluster removers (ACRs). These will help one person manage a larger number of units, without being concerned about over milking.
They allow the milker to focus on putting clusters on cows, rather than having to monitor cows to take them off.
Backing gates are also a useful tool to ensure that you don’t have to leave the pit to push cows in.
If you have to push cows in they often get in a habit of waiting for you to leave the pit before entering the parlour, which results in valuable time lost.
Time savers
Other time savers include having the parlour ready to go before you go for the cows, meaning once you and the cows have made it to the yard you can start right away.
Drafting facilities, that are either manual or electronic (operated from pit), will mean the milker will not need to leave the pit during milking.
This also reduces the amount of stress placed on yourself and your cows when they are leaving the parlour.
Automatic machine-washing is also a good way to reduce the labour input required during the washing-up process.
This will reduce the amount of time you have to wait for the parlour to finish washing.
Adopting some of these measures could reduce the amount of time you spend milking and the time that cows spend spend waiting to be milked.