Failure reduction advice
A failed milking is a milking that has stopped prior to completion. The failure reduction advice decision support tool can help you prevent these failures which can often have an effect on robot capacity. The advice will provide you with insights that can help you prevent future failures. When opening the advice, the relevant information will be shown which will help you decide whether to implement the suggested action or not.
Why the failure reduction advice?
By globally benchmarking 14,000 robots, we observed an average of 4.9 failures per robot per day. The top 10%, however, shows just 1.7 failures per robot per day. We recommend keeping failures at farm level as low as possible with a maximum of five failures per robot, and connection attempts under 1.3.
The failure reduction decision support tool aims to help you resolve cow-related failed milkings in accordance with the reason for failure. The benefits include limited impact on free time for the robot by preventing further failures, limited udder health issues caused by frequent milkings, and less time spent fetching cows after a failed milking.
When is advice given?
Failure reduction advice is given when:
- More than 4 failures within 7 days (consecutive failures are excluded).
- Cow does not have a moderate to high chance of sickness.
There are currently a number of different types of advice based on the reason for failure:
- Milk under supervision
- Milk less often
- Dry off
- Check quarter
Not all robot related failures are currently filtered out; this will be part of future improvements. This can have a negative effect on the accuracy of the advice. There is an option to disagree with the proposed action if you do not wish to implement it. Responding to advice will help us improve accuracy in the future.
What is needed to make optimal use of the advice?
A visual check
Things to take into consideration at cow level could be:
- Fly control/ventilation to prevent disturbance
- Treating mastitis
- Resetting teat coordinates in Horizon
- Providing assistance for cows with udder swelling
- Udder conformation is suitable for automatic milking system
- Improving barn/cubicle hygiene to prevent dirty udders
Correct settings in Horizon
- Calibrated robot components (laser, arm, camera, weighing floor)
- Clean cleaning laser, 3D camera, weighing platform
- Data from every milking
- Service schedule is up to date
- Software is up to date
Milk less often
This failure reduction advice is given when the front or rear teats are too close to each other. In most cases, this is due to poor udder fill. The teats are ‘standing’ better for the robot when there is more milk in the udder. We recommend milking these cows less frequently, e.g., 2 times a day, or increasing the optimum expected yield per milking. For this, a special group of close-teated cows is created and the milk access table is adjusted accordingly.
Parameters involved:
- More than 4 failures within 7 days (consecutive failures are excluded)
- Cow is not sick (based on sick chance)
- Cow is in mid to late lactation and not close to dry off
- Milk yield (advice not given when milk yield is high)
- Small teat distance
- Cow is milked more than 2 times daily on average.
How do you apply the advice?
Step 1: Open the advice screen (e.g. via the cowcard or the advice widget)
Step 2: Check the information on the advice screen to make your decision whether to agree or disagree.
Step 3: If you agree, select the group you want to put the cow in and click on Save.
Step 4: If you disagree, click on Disagree and select the reason why. The advice will not return for 7 days.
Milk under supervision
This failure reduction advice is given when we recommend milking the cow under supervision to visually determine the cause for failure. Generally, the cause of this type of advice is too long dead milk time (DMT); this means that the teat cups are connected successfully but there was no milk flow from a quarter. In such cases, we recommend the quarter be physically checked for mastitis, udder hair, teat end damage, etc. For some cows it could also be that she needs more stimulation before she lets her milk down, in those cases you can evaluate the brush settings.
If there is nothing to be found at cow level, and the number on robot level increases, check the cups and liners on the robot for tear or misalignment issues.
Please contact your FMS advisor if you need more information or help.
Parameters involved:
- 4 or more failures within 7 days (consecutive failures are excluded).
- Cow is not sick (according to sick chance)
- When the average number of connections is high
- When she is in early to mid lactation > Heifers <10 days in lactation are excluded from the advice
How do you apply the advice?
Step 1: Open the advice screen (e.g. via the cowcard or the advice widget)
Step 2: Check the information on the advice screen to make your decision whether to agree or disagree.
Step 3: If you agree, click on the Milk under supervision button, change the milk settings and click on Apply changes.
Step 4: If you disagree, click on Disagree and select the reason why. The advice will not return for 7 days.
Dry off
This failure reduction advice is given when a cow is at the end of her pregnancy and drying her off would be the best suggestion to prevent future failures.
Parameters involved:
4 or more failures within 7 days (consecutive failures are excluded). Cow is not sick (according to sick chance)Cow is close to expected dry off date When milk yield is low, advice can be given earlier
Each advice provides you with relevant information on the advice screen to help support your decision (e.g. days in lactation, milk production indication if a specific quarter caused failures).
How do you apply the advice?
Step 1: Open the advice screen (e.g. via the cowcard or the advice widget)
Step 2: Check the information on the advice screen to make your decision whether to agree or disagree.
Step 3: If you agree, add the cow to the next dry off task
Step 4: If you disagree, click on Disagree and select the reason why. The advice will not return for the following 7 days.
TIP! For more information about how to register a dry off in Horizon, click here.
Check quarter
This failure reduction advice appears when majority of the failures is caused by a single teat.
Parameters involved:
More than 4 failures within 7 days (consecutive failures are excluded).
Cow is not sick (based on sick chance)
One single teat causes majority of the failures
The advice provides you with relevant information on the advice screen to help support your decision.
Note that the production of the failing teat is the average of the last 7 days.
How do you apply the advice?
Step 1: Open the advice screen
Step 2: Check the information on the advice screen to make your decision. There is also an option to route the cow to perform a visual check.
Step 3: If – based on the observations – the milk settings for this quarter need to be changed, change the milk settings. If you disagree after completing the observation, click on Disagree.