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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HERD SIZE, MILKING TECHNOLOGY AND MILK PRODUCTION PARAMETERS ON LARGE-SCALE HUNGARIAN DAIRY FARMS

D. Ivanyos¹, A. Monostori², Cs. Németh², I. Fodor¹, L. Ózsvári¹

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The aim of the study was to survey the milking technology on the large-scale (≥50 cows) Hungarian dairy farms and to compare the different types of milking parlour with herd size, average daily milk yield, average daily milk production per each cow and average somatic cell count (SCC).

The milking technology was surveyed by using a questionnaire on 380 large-scale commercial Hungarian dairy farms in 2017, and it was compared with the official farm milk production data of March 2017. Three herd size categories (Group 1: 50–300 cows, Group 2: 301–600 cows and Group 3: >600 cows) were set up and the relationship between milking technology, herd-size and milk production parameters were analysed by using two-way ANOVA and Tukey-test.

In Group 1, 2 and 3 (1) the number of farms was 142, 142 and 96; (2) the average herd size was 165, 437 and 958 cows; (3) the average daily milk yield was 24.73, 29.42 and 32.25 kg; (4) the average daily milk production per each cow was 21.07, 25.83 and 28.49 kg; and (5) the weighted average SCC was 432.5, 412.7 and 341.9×10³/ml. As the herd size increases, so does the average daily milk yield and the average daily milk production per each cow, however, the average SCC decreases significantly (P<0.001). The type of milking parlour had a significant effect (P=0.027) on the average SCC, and dairy units having herringbone milking system produced the lowest quality of milk with an average of 430.0×10³ SCC/ml.

The type of milking parlour has an impact on milk quality, however further research is required in this regard.

Keywords: DAIRY FARM, MILKING TECHNOLOGY, HERD SIZE, MILK YIELD, SCC

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