Milchleistung, Milchfluss und Milchinhaltsstoffe von Kühen mit und ohne Kalbkontakt in Abhängigkeit von verschiedenen Stimulationsverfahren beim Melken

Summary

Farmers who are interested to rear calves together with the dairy cows during the first weeks of life are confronted with problems of poor milk let-down during machine milking. This study investigates the influence of three calf-associated stimuli during milking on milk yield, milk content and milk flow characteristics: olfactory (calf hair), tactile (teat massage) and acoustic (recorded calf calls) stimulation including 14 dairy cows with permanent contact to their calves (group KM) and 22 control cows (group M). All cows were milked twice daily. Stimulation tests were conducted in three consecutive weeks during day 25-51 of lactation, each stimulus tested in four milkings versus four milkings without stimulation. Mixed models with the fixed factors stimulation (vs. no stimulation), group, time of day, interaction stimulation*group and the random factor cows were applied for each stimulus. Stimulations had only minor effects on the measured parameters and did thus not improve the existing milkability of the dairy cows with and without calf contact. Differences between the groups were significant. KM-cows had a decreased milk yield of ca. 10 kg per milking and reduced fat content of about 1%. Also milk flow was lower than in M-cows. Further research on how to improve milk let-down of cows with calf contact should pay attention to the duration of pre-stimulation and the length of daily calf contact.