Capability

Cow mastitis:

The mastitis detection capability of MilkHub is aimed at controlling BMSCC by identifying cows likely to be contributing the most to the BMSCC.

In a 586 head field trial it was found that using MilkHub to draft the 10 worst cows would result in a BMSCC drop of about 80 thousand cells per ml. If MilkHub was used to draft 50 cows the BMSCC would be roughly halved.

Cow low yield:

The yield capability of MilkHub is aimed at identifying cows with low yield to eliminate underperforming cows from the herd.

The system uses the milking history over a few days to rank cows on low yield. This has proven to be more effective than a single herd test. Field trials have shown that some 5% of apparently low yield cows may be suffering only a short term reduction in milk volume. This could be due to withholding milk due to herd test disruption in the dairy, cycling, etc.

The plant milking capability of MilkHub is aimed at identifying milking stalls that are performing poorly compared with the rest of the stalls in the dairy.

Plant performance per stall is calculated over several days to eliminate short term distortions. Estimations of cup slip, milk to air ratio and milking time are used to determine poor performance.

These are indicative of defective claw holes, loose claw bowls, poor rubber wear, pulsator faults and the like.

Plant cleaning performance:

The cleaning performance capability is aimed at ensuring good hygiene by identifying milking stalls that have inadequate cleaning.

The multi-cycle cleaning scheme used at the end of every milking is monitored by MilkHub and solution flow, volume, temperature and detergent use calculated. Poor cleaning is identified from measures below acceptable limits or at variance from the rest of the stalls in the rotary.

These aberrations maybe indicative of the plant faults mentioned for plant milking performance above. More particularly these are indicative of poorly adjusted jetters, clusters not attached to jetters, human error or even inadequate plant cleaning capacity.