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Poster De Conférence Année : 2015

Milking practices of Breton dairy farmers with reduced milking intervals

Résumé

Milking represents 50% of the compulsory working time of dairy farmers and refrains many people from settling in dairy production. Moreover, the increase in herd size leads to a greater resort to salaried workers who do not wish to experience long ‘working days’ on farms; that is why experiments were carried out by INRA researchers to test reduced milking intervals (MI). B. Rémond showed lowt effect of reduced MI on dairy production as long as they remained over 5 h 30 min. But do the farmers apply such strategies on farms? To better understand practices, a study was done on the database of the milking times registered on the 4,600 farms at milk performance recording in Brittany, France, on the official control days. The milking times and intervals appeared to be very ‘traditionnal’ with only 0,1% of farms below 8 h 30 of milking intervals. Half of the farmers start milking between 7 am and 8 am, and between 5 pm and 6 pm. The average MI is 10 h 25 min. An enquiry was made by the 68 (0.45%) farms below 9 h of milking interval to better understand their motivations for ‘ shorter’ intervals. This study shows the reluctance of farmers to decrease their MI and change their practices. The motivations for more flexible milking times (shorter intervals, but also once a day milking, no milking on Sunday evenings, etc.) according to their relation to milking were described: more time for family, salaried worker milking for instance. The main restraint for changing appears to be related to fears around animal welfare ou udder health. It underlines the need for further experiments and communication around milking intervals. This study was carried out thanks to BCLEO and EYLIPS organisations.
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Dates et versions

hal-02740819 , version 1 (02-06-2020)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-02740819 , version 1
  • PRODINRA : 325679

Citer

V. Brocard, G. Trou, Jocelyne Guinard-Flament, F. Gervais, Nelly Muller, et al.. Milking practices of Breton dairy farmers with reduced milking intervals. 66. Annual Meeting of the European Federation of Animal Science (EAAP), Aug 2015, Warsaw, Poland. Wageningen Academic Publishers, Annual Meeting of the European Association for Animal Production, 21, 2015, Book of Abstracts of the 66th Annual Meeting of the European Association for Animal Production. ⟨hal-02740819⟩
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