Automatic milking
The world’s first automatic milking stall module for several types of milk parlours is the claim of Germany’s GEA Farm Technologies, after its DairyProQ won a gold medal at EuroTier, the No 1 European and world innovations show for farm machinery, equipment and inputs.
The milking stall module allows continuous fully automatic milking at fixed milking times, and is especially suitable for large dairy farms. Due to its slim design, it can be installed in every type of milking parlour — such as herringbone, rotary, side-by-side, or tandem.
Judges of the EuroTier gold and silver medals for innovation also said the system allows good accessibility of the udder, so semi-automatic milking is also possible.
They said larger scale dairy farmers can use this technology as a step towards automating heavy milking work, without having to convert the regular work processes and other procedures.
Or the DairyProQ carries out all the steps in milking fully automatically, if preferred — teat preparation including cleaning, milk sampling, milking, removal of the teat cups, dipping, disinfection of the teat cups and their external components between cow milkings.
*There was a EuroTier silver medal also for innovation by the GEA Farm Technologies dairy team.
It was presented for the GEA DairyProView, software which will allow the big herd owner keep track of his housed animals. The software allows the user see the up-to-date animal population in individual work areas such as cubicles, calving and milking areas, and individual cow movements.
Integrated into GEA herd- management systems, it enables better and more systematic work planning, such as workflow of the herd manager and the milking staff.
Source: irishexaminer.com