Activities

The specific objectives of AUTOGRASSMILK were addressed through 5 tasks: (1) developing feeding strategies for dairy cows incorporating grazing with AM; (2) using new precision grazing technologies to optimise the integration of grazing and AM; (3) increasing the sustainability of integrated grazing and AM technologies; (4) developing a tool that will allow dairy farmers to optimise economic efficiency when combining grazing with AM and; (5) disseminate new technology to end-users in a form that is easily accessible and locally adapted to improve farm efficiency.

Additional information

On fragmented lands, combining automatic milking with grazing is very difficult when the pasture area is far from the barn. The solution to this problem may be to have a mobile milking robot that can be transported from a winter site to a summer/pasture site in the spring, and back to the winter site in the autumn. Thus this technical solution can contribute to incorporating pasture into the diet of automatically milked cows. However, it is not easy to organise and requires a reflection around milking and exploitation of grassland, to ensure that all factors have been considered.

The project AUTOGRASSMILK has elaborated a guideline with useful information for farmers so that they can better perform and decide about this machinery. The document provides the farmer with some tips and recommendations about which and what kind of technical supplies are needed (water, electricity, communications) or requirements for waste and residue management for example. Special attention is paid on how to properly allocate the milking unit on the plot because the farmer should take into account several aspects like the stability and manoeuvring of the equipment, circulation of the cattle, weather conditions (insulation, winds), etc.





This short summary is based on the deliverable n° 2.3 by AUTOGRASSMILK: “Guidelines for optimized operation of mobile milking units and automated carousel with different amounts of supplements at different parts of the grazing season” - http://autograssmilk.dk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Deliverable-23.pdf - For further information on the specific chapter on mobile milking units please contact: Valérie Brocard, Institut de L’Elevage (IDELE), 149 Rue de Bercy, 75 012 Paris; E-mail: Valerie.Brocard@idele.fr