Automatic vs. conventional feeding systems in robotic milking dairy farms: a survey in the Netherlands.

Automatic feeding (AF) systems for totally or partially mixed rations (TMR or PMR) are expected to reduce labour demand and stimulate cows’ activity promoting visits to both the feeding devices and the automatic milking (AM) system. AF’s have recently been introduced in commercial dairy farms and little experience is available. Objective of this paper was to identify differences in the lay-out of the barns and operation of the feeding systems between early adopters of automatic feeding systems (AF) as compared to farmers with conventional feeding systems (CF). We surveyed 22 dairy farms in the Netherlands that were all using automatic milking systems. 54.5% of these farms fed their milking cows with an AF system while 45.5% used a conventional feeding system. The herd sizes were similar for the two groups of AF and CF farms as were the milk production while the number of cow groups was higher in the AF farms. The feeding alleys in the AF farms were narrower (2.7 m) compared to those in the CF ones (5.3 m), while the average number of cows per feeding place was similar (1.0 for the AF farms compared with 0.9 for the CF). The most striking differences were related to the feeding distribution pattern, the feeding frequency and the feeding intervals. 80% of the farms with CF distributed the feed once per day while the number of feed push ups for those farms was 3.5  1.6 times day. The AF farms distributed the feed 7.8  2.0 times day with intervals between feedings of 3.1  0.9 hours and with automatic push ups of the feed. The farmers who fed with automatic feeding systems were positive about their overall performance, especially about the management aspects. The query revealed a decrease in labour requirement for feeding from 33.2 s cow day with CF to 16.4 s cow day with AF.