Robotic Milking

In the mid-eighties of the century just passed, companies and research institutes started developing automatic milking systems. In 1992 the first milk robot was installed on a commercial dairy farm in the Netherlands: fiction came true. Since the technical problems of automatically attaching teat cups have been solved, automatic milking systems are installed at an increasing rate. Today, on about 500 dairy farms world-wide, cows are being milked by a robot. Thus, the first steps towards a major technological innovation in dairy farming have been made. Meanwhile, systems already on the market are being continuously improved, and new systems are on the verge of market introduction: innovation continues. Robotic milking, no matter how impressive the technological achievements may be, involves far more than just substituting manual labour by technology: the whole farming operation changes. Therefore, in recent years, research has focussed on the requirements and effects of automatic milking with respect to a wide variety of topics such as barn layout cow routing, farm management and economics, milk quality and cow welfare and health. This book brings together the present state of knowledge on the impact of robotic milking within the context of the farming operation.