Four.


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

Hi
If it isn't a lot of trouble, can you look this up again and see if any reason for four milkings and what time of day (nite) they milked. I would of guessed 3.


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

The book that I got the question and answer from did not offer any information on the topic. I did however look up frequency of milking and found that on the average a calf will nurse every 4 to six hours which could correlate with four or more milkings per day. I also found that some research had been done in Israel which found if four or six milkings per day were done during the early weeks of lactation an average of 13 pounds more milk per day was produced, and this high level of lactation would continue throughout the period of lactation even though the cows were later cut back to fewer milkings.
In this study, cows that were milked for 3x per day in the first six weeks of lactation produced 78 pounds per day, and then 83 pounds per day for the remainder of their lactation when switched to twice a day milking. The cow which were milked 6x per day gave 94 pound per day for the six week period, but remained at 94 when switched to 3x per day for the remainder of the lactation period. I have included the link to the information on this study.

www.cals.ncsu.edu/an_sci/extension/dairy/newsletters/0902nlet_should%20cows.PDF


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

Thanks


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum

Fascinating results! I wonder how that would compare to cows milked in those new fangled automatic milking parlors where they go in whenever they want to be milked. The computers in those milking parlors keep track of each cow and it would be so easy to look at the data for the answer!


8 years ago via Forums | Front Porch Forum