Using real time cow information for daily grazing management

Over the last decade, the number of grazing dairy cows in north western European countries has decreased sharply. The reduction in cow pasture grazing is even more likely to occur when AM (automatic milking) is in place. This decrease in grazing is the main reason for starting the project AUTOGRASSMILK funded from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement no. SME-2012-2-314879. One of the objectives of the project is the optimisation and integration of AM with cow grazing using new technologies. During the grazing season 2013 a herd consisting of 55 HF/FH cows, milked with an AM system, was subjected to strip grazing on the research station Dairy Campus in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. For grazing 24 ha of permanent pasture was available. The herd had 12 hours daily access to grazing. During the 12-h night period cows were kept indoors and fed with a fixed amount of TMR. Drinking water was only available indoors. At 06:00 h cows got access to a first strip grass. After this strip has been grazed, cows were expected to return to the barn for milking. At 12:00 h cows that not returned back to the barn were fetched. After cows were milked they got access to the second strip for the rest of the daily grazing period. At the end of this grazing period (18:00 h) cows that were still in the pasture were fetched. All individual cow data regarding milk production (yield and frequency) and activity (lying and standing, steps) were recorded during 17 weeks with commercially available technologies. The average yield of the herd was 25.2 kg milk/cow/day with in average 2.4 milkings/cow/day. During the 12-h night period in which the cows were in the barn the number of steps was in average 457/cow/day; during the 12-h day period with access to pasture the number of steps was in average 2,437/cow/day. Possibilities for using these AM and activity data for daily management decisions under grazing circumstances will be discussed in more detail at individual cow level as well as at herd level.