Water Consumption in the Automatic Milking Systems

The article deals with the determination of water consumption at selected dairy farms during milking using automatic milking systems (AMS). The aim was to determine the water consumption during basic activities associated with the AMS use, namely water for cleaning the milking set and water for cleaning and disinfecting the entire milking system at set daily intervals (hereinafter water). The research was carried out at seven farms in the Czech Republic, which house dairy cows of the black-spotted Holstein cattle. The evaluated groups of dairy cows had from 97 to 103 milked cows for the entire monitored period. Based on the performed measurements, it was found that the average amount of water consumed by AMS per 1 litre of milked milk was 0.33 litres. The results show that water consumption is not completely constant during the year. Multiple factors, including performance, the number of non-drinking milk detections, animal health and current climatic conditions, influence it.