Determination of herd management performance values of dairy farms that used robotic milking system in Turkey

The use of robotic milking systems has been increasing in order to reduce labor force, improve animal welfare and improve the quality of life of dairy farmers. More than 35,000 milking robots are used in many parts of the world, especially in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Australia. The first milking robot was used in Turkey in almost twenty years after its discovery in the world. Our first robotic farms, which are still existed, have just completed around five years. The introduction of robotic milking systems in Turkey will be certainly the most significant technologic development in the dairy farms in a couple of years. For this reason, evaluate robotic milking performance in Turkey was aimed in the study. This paper makes also to be better understood the relationship between robot and management practices on milking performance. The data presented in this paper was collected from 84 milking robots in 32 farms in Turkey. The results can be summarized as follows; milk yield (29,2 kg/cow), total milk yield produced per robot (1496 kg/robot, day),number of cows that milked per robot (51 cows/robot, day), milking numbers (2,7 milkings/robot),refusal cows (1,9 cows/robot,day), failure cows (4,3 cows/robot, day), separated milk (29,4 kg/robot, day), amount of concentrate feed (189,6 kg/robot, day) and consume of concentrate feed per milk production (0,18 kg/kg) (Results that were found in this study are similar to previous studies regarding robotic milking performance).