SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MONITORING AND CONTROLLING MILK PRODUCTION AT DAIRY FARMS

摘要

An automated modular system for officially controlling the quantity and quality of milk production at a dairy farm site, including the steps of: assigning each dairy herd an identification code; assigning each milk producing animal in each herd a unique animal identification code; providing means for measuring quantitative milk production from an individual animal using a milk flow meter temporarily connectable with a milking machine for an individual animal, which milk flow meter is capable of continuously weighing milk produced per unit time by an individual animal during a single milking session; providing means for qualitative analysis of the composition of a sample of milk from an individual dairy animal, which means includes an infrared optical probe; providing system control and memory means connected to the milk flow meter and to the means for qualitative analysis; entering a dairy herd code into the system control means and thereby initiating control of the herd and accessing stored data for said herd and each individual dairy animal therein; entering an individual dairy animal identification code in the system control means when the corresponding individual dairy animal is present at the milking machine, thereby activating the milk flow meter; measuring quantitive milk production from the individual dairy animal; qualitatively analyzing a sample of milk from the individual dairy animal; detecting completion of milking session as indicated by said milk flow meter, and storing in the system memory data from the milking session.