Walwyn
Member
- Location
- West Wales
Dont be afraid to just walk away from those awkward ones. They'll either turn round by themselves, flow will continue and they'll be at the end or they'll walk on when there comfortable that noones looking at them. A little extra time now will save loads later.We have relocated matts from the herringbone so hopefully we are ok there!
This morning, with the aid of a hose pipe pointing down on exit stall no 2 seemed to be better.
We are finding that the first 150 cows are flying on but we do have a few awkward b******s in the second 150 that are standing in the entry point to the race and as soon as you go to get them in they turn around, upset all the others and head off down the collecting yard!
Do we rig up a longer race again or pull out a few difficult cows until the others are trained or do we set up some gates to hold 30 cows close to the entry point and get them in in batches??? Don't want to create bad habits!
Right now milking is a four person job so hope it gets better soon!
I try and get through to staff milking here, especially at the start of the season, when flow stops you dont need to get up and push the whole group up, often its just one cow usually a timid heifer, once shes happy she walks on or another cow will push passed and away you go. If you keep pushing cows up they come to expect it.
Once the herd is settled, we find we got 1 or 2 matriachs that no one will pass, you just have to move them and flow resumes.