Udder health and milk quality are very important factors that affect milk production. In the last decade, the automatic milking system has become very popular and well established. For these reasons, we decided to analyse the influence of automatic milking on udder health and milk quality. Automatic milking system has a positive effect on the condition of the teats and consequently on the health of the udder (there is practically no more damage to the teat opening), since individual quarters are milked separately and some robots have the possibility to adjust the pulsation according to the milk outflow. Good condition of the teat also means less mastitis. One of the biggest advantage of this system is increased milk yield per cow, due to increase of the milking frequency. On the other hand, the cleanliness of the udder prior to the milking, poses a big problem when it is done with robots. At the moment there are no sensors that would determine if the udder is sufficiently clean, so the washing is standardised irrespective of the actual needs for washing of udder and teats. Therefore, the cleanliness of the cows and their udders is even more important in this milking system. Poor cleanliness of the udder leads to lower quality of milk, as this cause more frequent enter of bacteria through the teat canal into the gland cistern, which in turn leads to the inflammation of the mammary gland. The positive impact of milking robot is reflected in the increased amount of fat and protein content and the negative impact is reflected in the increased amount of free fatty acids. However, when carrying out these surveys we need to acknowledge that several factors are intertwined and have effect on the results of dairying in a single farm. We must therefore be careful when interpreting these factors.
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