Auswirkungen der muttergebundenen Kälberaufzucht auf das Melkverhalten der Kühe

Summary

The introduction of mother-bonded calf rearing into organic dairy farming faces some
problems. Regarding the cow, the disturbed milk ejection seems to be the most important
one. We compared two groups of cows, which had permanent (Kp, n=11) or temporarily
(Kt,n=13) contact to their calves until the 90th day p.p. with cows separated
from their offspring within 24 h after calving (Ko, n=24). Since suckling following the
machine milking strongly influences milk ejection, the Kt-cows were allowed to meet
their calves 15 minutes before the usual milking times (milking interval 10:14 hours) in
a separated area. Milk flow curves were recorded at the 6th day after calving and
afterwards every fortnight at least until the 90th day of lactation. At the same time
bucket milk samples of each cow were collected. Results showed clear differences
between the groups with and without calf contact. In these groups, the milk yield
gained by machine milking was much lower (up to 10 kg per milking, p<0.001) and
contained less fat (- 1%, p<0.001). The frequency of bimodal flow curves did not differ
between the groups due to the loss of the cisternal milk in the Kt and Kp-group. Mean
milk flow was reduced in the suckled cows and decreased significantly in the investigated
period from 1.4 to 0.6 and from 1.1 to 0.8 kg min-1 (F2,463=27.36, p<0.0001) for
the Kp and Kt-group, respectively. Thus, suckling prior to machine milking does not
avoid disturbed milk ejections in suckled cows. Further investigations should focus on
splitting machine milking and suckling to solve this problem.