Animal husbandry – Milkers – With automatic control
Patent
1997-06-27
1999-03-09
Carone, Michael J.
Animal husbandry
Milkers
With automatic control
119 1402, 119 1418, A01J 5017
Patent
active
058786929
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an apparatus for monitoring an animal in a stall.
Furthermore, it relates to a method of monitoring an animal in a stall.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Automatic milking of animals is disclosed in EP-A-91 892. The automatic milking takes place in one or more combined feeding and milking stalls provided in a barn in which the animals are allowed to walk about freely and find their way individually to the stalls for feeding, drinking and milking. The animals are automatically identified in each stall and fed with the aid of a computer connected to the identification and feeding means used. By means of the computer, in which facts concerning each animal, when she was last milked, etc are stored, automatic milking is initiated. The stall also comprises retaining gates which are automatically closed to retain the animal during milking and opened to let the animal leave the stall.
Traditionally, animals are milked twice a day. Because of high labour costs it was not interesting to increase the number of milkings per day as long as milking was performed manually. It is however recognised that milking an animal three to four times a day has proven to be less detrimental to her, since the udder is not filled to its maximum between each milking. Such a milking procedure also corresponds more closely to the behaviour of the calves and therefore results in healthier animals. As a side effect, however, it is possible to increase the total milk production from one animal by 15-25%. By means of automatic milking machines it is not only possible, but would also be economically interesting to milk the animals more often than twice a day, since the labour cost is no longer critical. In this case it is rather the high investment cost which is a limiting factor.
DE-C-3 702 465 discloses a system for automatic milking and feeding of animals.
A problem of prior art automatic milking systems is their lack of reliable equipment for monitoring the animal in the stall, in order to enable immediate actions to take place in case disturbances of any kind should occur.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the present invention is to provide a reliable method and apparatus for monitoring an animal in a stall.
The present invention also resides in the insight that the animals stay to the flock, and are therefore reluctant to be left alone e.g. in a milking station; they may get worried or even be seized by panic.
This object is obtained by the apparatus initially defined, which is characterised in that a sound sensing means is arranged to sense sounds in the vicinity of the animal, wherein a control unit is adapted to control an animal related action means in response to said sound sensing means, sensing an inadmissible sound, such that said action means performs an action in a predetermined manner.
The object is also obtained by the method of the initially stated kind, which is characterised by the steps of: and sensing an inadmissible sound in such a way that said action means performs an action in a predetermined manner.
Preferably, the apparatus comprises an automatic milking machine having teatcups to be attached to the teats of an animal, and said animal related action means comprises attachment means for automatically attaching at least one of the teatcups to a teat, wherein the sound sensing means is arranged to sense sounds created in the vicinity of a teatcup when the teatcup is attached to the teat by means of said attachment means, and the control unit is adapted to control the attachment means to detach the teatcup from and reattach the teatcup onto the teat in response to the sound sensing means sensing an inadmissible attachment sound indicating an incorrect teatcup attachment. Hereby, a reliable automatic milking machine is achieved.
Suitably, a sound comparator connected to the sound sensing means is adapted to compare the sound created in the vicinity of the teatcup with recorded sounds created during correct attachment of the teatcup to the teat,
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Alfa Laval Agri AB
Carone Michael J.
Shaw Elizabeth
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