Feed intake of dairy cows in automatic milking systems with forced cow traffic

The temporal pattern of feeding behaviour of dairy cows in a farm with automatic milking system (AMS), forced cow traffic and total mixed ration (TMR) was analysed. For this purpose data from 259816 electronically measured feed quantities and feeding times were used. Cows showed a typical pattern of feed intake with meals consisting of intervals with feeding activity varying in length and short break intervals. Meal criteria for several cow groupings and for all individually cows were calculated. As global criterion for the definition of a meal a break point of T2 52.4 was estimated. The individual break points for the cows amounted to a minimum of T2 30.5 min and a maximum of T = 75.8 min, the median was 50.2 min. Average number of daily meals was 4.4 T2 = 52.5) and corresponded to the number of cycles in AMS. The average meal length of 58.0 min contained a total feeding time of 33.7 min. In this time the cows fed 8.8 kg TMR on an average. Cows showed a daily rhythm of feed intake with significant higher values in daytime and lower values in nighttime, which corresponded with the recorded frequencies of cycles in the AMS. A higher feeding rate of the older cows and the same feeding time led to a feed intake that was 3.9 kg higher in comparison to cows in first lactation. Though the feed intake per meal increased by one kg to 9.4 kg during lactation, the feed intake per day was lower because the number of cycles in AMS decreased by one near the end of lactation.