World Dairy Expo Tech Spotlight brings new products to light wisfarmer.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wisfarmer.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Automation makes feeding more consistent hoards.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hoards.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Could farmers be teaching cows bad habits?
Although it might be entertaining to see cows running toward the feedbunk and eagerly start eating, this is also a sign that they’re hungry. Unfortunately, they might be so hungry that it’s a detriment.
“The reason why that can be concerning is that if cows do that too much, they’re going to consume too much feed too quickly,” said Trevor DeVries, professor and cattle behavior specialist at the University of Guelph. “That can then have a negative impact on the rumen environment.”
“Those large meals get digested fairly quickly, particularly the highly fermentable carbohydrates,” he continued during “Troubleshooting Herd Health Issues on Your Dairy-Feeding Behavior,” a Cornell Cooperative Extension podcast. “As a result of that, rumen pH gets potentially depressed, and with that, fiber digestibility gets depressed. Those things can then have a negative impact on passage rate from the rumen, overall digestibility, and
Robots don t just help farmers mental health; cows like them too | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan s News Source infotel.ca - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from infotel.ca Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Robots milk cows so farmers can sleep later; mental health benefits for both
By Marc Fawcett-Atkinson and Local Journalism Initiative Reporter National Observer
Published article
One cow is waiting for a milking robot while another is being milked.(File Photo by Bernd Wüstneck/picture alliance via Getty Images)
Mickey Aylard used to wake up in the dead of night and milk a hundred cows. Now, a robot does the job.
Three years ago, the fourth-generation Saanich, B.C., dairy farmer installed an automatic milking system that milks cows on their schedule, without human intervention. It was a relief, she said, boosting her mental health and making life on the farm more sustainable.