Animal Behaviour and Pasture Depletion in a Pasture-Based Automatic Milking System

In an automatic milking system (AMS) feed is used as an incentive to encourage voluntary and distributed cow traffic to the milking unit (Prescott et al. 1998). Therefore the timing, placement and size of feed allocations need to be managed in order to achieve targeted milking events per day. Behavioural studies allow the construction of time budgets (Gibb et al. 1998), and aid understanding of how cows modify their behaviour under different management regimes (Johansson et al. 1999). To date there are no published reports on how different location of feed incentives affect cows’ behaviour upon arrival at a pasture allocation in pasture-based AMS. A behavioural study was conducted in a pasture-based AMS where cows received supplementary feed either prior to (PRE), or immediately after (POST) milking. It was hypothesised that as PRE cows would have spent comparatively more time than POST cows since they ate their respective allocation of supplementary feed (at the time of exiting the dairy), they would be more motivated to go to the paddock in search of additional feed. Thus they would graze more intensively once they entered their pasture allocation