Evaluation of three methods to assess the degree of milk-out in dairy cows

Amount and variation of strip yields collected by a defined hand-milking method after machine milking of Holstein dairy cows

Hand-milking methods to assess the completeness of milking in dairy cows need to be reliable as well as quick to apply in order to avoid delays in group milking parlours. A previous study comparing different methods demonstrated that a defined milking handgrip with a strip frequency of 1 Hz was most suitable to assess the completeness of milk-out in dairy cows. In a first step, the present study aimed to investigate how much milk can be hand-milked by the defined handgrip, strip frequency and within a time limit of 15 s per quarter. In a second step, the question was how many udder quarters of a cow needed to be hand-milked for a reliable prediction of the amount of rest milk in the udder. The experiment comprised 28 German-Holstein cows of one herd. The cows were hand-milked after cluster detachment by an experienced milker using the defined milking handgrip. All four quarters per cow were hand-milked during nine consecutive milking sessions. The strip yield per quarter per 15 s hand-milking (SY15) was collected in four different containers and weighed with a digital scale. Afterwards, the remaining milk of all four quarters was collected and weighed in a fifth container with a maximum volume equivalent to a net weight of 540 g milk. The analysis showed that neither the position of the quarter nor the chronological order, in which hand-milking was carried out, had an influence on SY15. The amount of rest milk in the udder could be estimated best by hand-milking all four quarters.