Animal husbandry – Milkers – Methods of milking
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-21
2001-04-03
Poon, Peter M. (Department: 3644)
Animal husbandry
Milkers
Methods of milking
C119S014020, C119S014080
Reexamination Certificate
active
06209485
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a method of automatically milking animals, such as cows. The invention further relates to a fully automatic milking apparatus which is suitable for performing said method.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Methods of automated milking of animals are known. When an animal visits the milking parlor, it is decided on the basis of a milking criterion whether or not the animal will be milked. European Patent EP-A-0 091 892 describes a system in which a cow is milked in the milking parlor, after at least a predetermined period of time has elapsed since her last milking. This has inter alia the disadvantage that mutual differences between animals to be milked are not taken into account. Moreover, it is necessary to measure each time for each animal the beginning and the end of the milking and to record these data, which requires measuring equipment that is sensitive to interference and occupies a relatively large amount of memory capacity.
From International Patent WO-A-95/35028 it is known to use as a milking criterion the number of milkings of other animals which have occurred since the previous milking of the relevant animal; in this situation the animal is milked when this number at least equals a specific minimum number, which may differ for each animal. This milking criterion can be practiced with the aid of simple and cheap means.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the instant inventions is to refine and improve this latter method. According to the invention this is achieved by assigning each animal a number (x) which indicates how often the animal must be milked per unit time and the specific number of intervening milkings of other animals is calculated for each animal as a function of the corresponding milking number (x). As a result of the fact that the threshold value of the milking criterion depends on an individual target number for the number of milkings of the relevant animal, a desired number of milkings per unit of time can be achieved for each animal.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the specific number of milkings is calculated in such a manner that it is proportional to the total number of milkings of all the animals per unit of time, divided by the individual milking number, multiplied by the number of milkings of the relevant animal per unit of time in a recent period of time, divided by the individual milking number. In practice it has appeared that in this manner for each animal the desired number of milkings per unit of time can be provided with a great degree of accuracy.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5351644 (1994-10-01), Everett
patent: 5873323 (1999-02-01), Berg et al.
patent: 0091892 (1983-10-01), None
patent: 95/35028 (1995-12-01), None
van den Berg Karel
van der Lely Alexander
van Overveld Cornelis J. M.
Abbott Yvonne R.
Albright Penrose Lucas
Maasland N.V.
Poon Peter M.
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