Welfare Implications for Dairy Cattle of Modern Technological Advances: (I) Robotic Milking

Abstract

Automatic milking systems, otherwise, known as robotic milking, have been used in dairy farms more and more over the past two decades. The system gives the cattle the opportunity to decide when they are milked which should be beneficial to their welfare, but potentially separated the farmer from his or her animals, which could be detrimental. Here we look at health and welfare implications of robotic milking, seek to review research undertaken in this area and look to future advances in automatic milking of dairy cattle.