Comparison of advantages and disadvantages of the introduction of Automated Milking Systems in small scale dairy farm

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to compare the advantages and disadvantages of the introduction of Automated Milking Systems (AMS) in modern farms, especially in Norway, considering that Norway is the country with the steepest increase in the use of automated systems (Jøsang, 2017). Since the introduction of the first milking robot in 2000, the number of milking robots in use has increased to 1800 units (Jøsang, 2017). Meaning that 1 in 5 farms use a AMS (Tine kommunikasjon, 2016). This is mainly because Norway has small scale farms which are suited for the use of milking robots, as one milking robot is only able to milk up to 64 to 75 animals per day (Landrø, 2009). My research is based upon literature review from journals which have conducted studies on the introduction of AMS. The introduction of AMS has led to lot of improvements for the farmer, but some aspects still needs to be improved to be able to compare to the Conventional Milking Systems (CMS). During this review I will also look at literature comparing udder health in AMS and CMS, as Mastitis is the most frequent and costly disease of the dairy industry worldwide. It is a disease which is constantly present in the herd and hard to eradicate (Haugaard et al., 2012). And I have looked at how the introduction of AMS has an impact of the occurrence and the detections of mastitis infections in the herd. In 2015, high somatic cell count in milk lead to a 10 million NOK loss in the dairy industry due to milk which had to be discarded (Nybakken et al., 2015).