Effects of frequent feed pushes of mixed feed on feeding behaviour, feed intake, and milk production in an AMS herd

Precision Livestock Farming offers new technologies to substitute man hours spent on feeding management in intensive dairy farming, including automated feed pusher robots. Value of the technology may be more than just labour replacing if it creates increased feeding activity leading to higher feed intake and milk production. A trial was set up in a commercial dairy herd with an automatic milking system (AMS). The experimental treatments in terms of three versus ten feed pushes per day were performed twice in one large group of lactating dairy cows during July-August 2015. Mixed models were used to evaluate the effect of the applied feed pushing frequencies on three feed event-based feeding behaviours and three meal-based feeding behaviours, dry matter and energy intake, daily milk yield and milking attendance. Results from this study could not support increasing number of feed pushes in this herd in order to improve production as ten feed pushes did not as expected increase feeding activity of the cows. Instead it resulted in significantly longer duration of feed events, fewer meals and less total meal time compared to three feed pushes per day. Furthermore, feed intake and daily milk yield were significantly lower during experimental periods with ten feed pushes. Parity, days in milk and repetition included as fixed effects in the mixed models all proved to be important factors for the response variables.