INVESTIGATIONS AS TO LABOR REQUIREMENT FOR AUXILIARY WORK DURING MILKING

In work studies in herds of 90 cows and more a labour requirement of r oughly 1.5 min/cow and day for preparation and cleaning of the milking installation and other auxiliary work in connection with milking sess ions was found. Labour requirement clearly decreased with increasing h erd size. The number of milking units installed turned out to be a sui table basis for an approximative estimation of labour requirement whic h was almost independend from herd size. Application of this parameter resulted in a labour requirement of about 5 min/milking unit and day. For other activities, to be executed outside the milking parlour, esp ecially management of cow traffic, in average 1.1 min/cow and day were used. They are mainly determined by the duration of milking sessions and the number of persons working. Work for operators in the milking p arlour is simplified and speeded up, if operations described here is t aken care of by additional workers outside the parlour, even in small herds.