Influence of routing treatments on cows' visits to an automatic milking system, their time budget and other behaviour

Four cow routing treatments related to fully automatic milking were compare d consecutively in one group of 24 Holstein Friesian cows. The objective of the experiment was to investigate how cow traffic towards the automatic mi lking system (AMS) should be routed and whether a preselection or a waiting area in front of the AMS should be used. The treatments were (1) free rout ing with selection of cows in the AMS (FREE); (2) free routing with a prese lection system in front of the AMS (FREE_SS); (3) free routing with a prese lection system and a waiting area in front of the AR;IS (FREE_WA); and (4) one-way gates resulting in forced routing with preselection and a waiting a rea in front of the AMS (FORCED_WA). Evaluation of the treatments revealed that FREE may be questionable with regard to the cows' visiting frequency t o the AMS and that the use of a waiting area in combination with free routi ng (FREE_WA) may slow down the passing through the AMS. FORCED_WA may be th e best option in relation to the cows' use of the AMS, but this traffic sys tem seems to postpone or even thwart the feeding. The treatment that appear s to give the best results is FREE_SS. The type of AMS visit appeared to ha ve a marked influence on the cows' subsequent behaviour. Cows returned to t he AMS sooner after non-milking visits and failed attachments (P < 0.01). T his increases the occupation rate of the AMS and may induce some extra unre st in the herd.