Animal husbandry – Milkers – With automatic control
Patent
1990-01-23
1991-05-21
Swiatek, Robert P.
Animal husbandry
Milkers
With automatic control
119 1415, 119 1417, A01J 700
Patent
active
050165690
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to devices for measuring quantity of milk drawn from one cow by a milking unit, more particularly, to an automatic milk counter of a milking unit.
BACKGROUND ART
Reliable information on milk yield of each cow and on productivity of different portions of its udder is essential for goal-oriented milk production at animal farms and industrial livestock complexes, selective work on determining fitness of cows for machine milking, provision of science-based feed allowances depending on the productivity and physiological condition of each animal, and also for objective assessment of production results and zootechnic, veterinary and selective work on a dairy herd. Accurate information on milk yield makes it possible to establish optimal production links in controlling dairy farms and also to reveal subclinic forms of quarter troubles. This enables timely examination of cows and prevents contamination of mixed herd milk with milk drawn from diseased animals in machine milking, a factor decreasing losses associated with impaired quality of milk and rejection of diseased animals.
Moreover, individual milk outputs are closely related to many other important functions including milk production and breeding. For example, productivity deviations recorded at a definite stage of the estrous cycle may be one of the indications of cows in estrus.
Automation of milk recording is an urgent problem for collection of data on daily yield of each cow consumes much labour and calls for processing a large body of information.
Another important problem at the present time is to take due account of the properties of the medium under measurement in determining the quantity of milk and also of constructional features of milk counters and their operating conditions.
Discrepancy between the physical and mathematical models of measurement of separate portions of milk attributable to differences between actual and ideal measuring conditions introduces a noticeable error in determining the quantity of milk drawn from one cow. The afore-mentioned problems may not be solved by the use of the known devices which are generally characterized by low accuracy and ineffectiveness in control of production, breeding and selection at dairy farms.
PRIOR ART
There is known a milk volume or mass counter communicating via inlet and outlet pipes with a milking unit of a milking machine and with its milk pipeline and containing a sensitive metering element made up as a rotary drum (cf. SU, A No. 886, 855) or a chute (cf. SU, A No. 1,020, 090 and SU, A No. 1,297, 771) with measuring and correcting chambers and a magnet secured thereto and interacting with a means for forming separate portions of milk. The foregoing counters have fairly low measuring accuracy, a disadvantage attributable to the presence of only one corrective element made as a chamber. Calibration of the chute of the disclosed milk counter (cf. SU, A No. 1,297,771) with a counterwieght used to change its mass creates difficulties in alignment of the milk counter and limits its accuracy due to the fact that the choice of a particular corrective mass is discrete, whereas the correction factor may actually take on any other intermediate values, whether small or large, differing from the chosen mass of said counterweight.
Furthermore, in the aforesaid counters no account is taken of properties of milk, constructural features of a particular milk counter and its operating conditions at dairy farms, a disadvantage substantially decreasing accuracy thereof.
Also, the milking process may be properly monitored since the known counters include no means for monitoring the initial and final milking phases and recording the total time spent by the operator on milking the cow or drawing milk from a quarter of its udder. This complicates the attendance, increases the disease rate and reduces productivity of the dairy herd due to nonoptimal milking conditions and absence of requisite monitoring facilities.
The aforesaid counters do not provide for processi
REFERENCES:
patent: 4185586 (1980-01-01), Flocchini
patent: 4485763 (1984-12-01), Icking
Latviiskaya Selskhokhozyaistvennaya Akademia
Swiatek Robert P.
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