Last year was the first full year of the “10 in seven” milking frequency trial in Moorepark and the results were extremely positive. If they can be replicated this year, it could be a game-changer for dairy farming in Ireland.

There was no difference recorded in milk yield per cow between cows milked “10 in seven” for part of the year and cows milked twice a day all year.

“Ten in seven” refers to milking cows 10 times in seven days. This means that cows are milked every morning, but are only milked in the evenings three times per week and milked once a day four days per week.

The milking times for the Moorepark experiment are shown in Table 1. The start times for the once-a-day milking days are adjusted so as that the milking times will be as close as practical to mid-way between the two morning milkings.

There was three treatments in the Moorepark experiment; the control group of 21 cows were milked twice a day for all the lactation.

There was one group of 21 cows milked “10 in seven” for half of the lactation and there was one group of 21 cows milked “10 in seven” for the entire lactation. All cows were randomly assigned to each treatment based on EBI, calving date, breed, lactation, SCC and so forth.

Some of the cows in the 2022 study would have previously been part of the once a day milking study which showed that cows milked once a day for the full season produced 21% less milk solids per cow than cows milked twice a day for the full season.

Emer Kennedy is the research officer overseeing the experiment and she said the purpose of doing the “10 in seven” study was to see if this gap could be closed by milking more frequently than once a day but less frequently than twice a day.

“Ten in seven” milking is one of a number of flexible milking routines, most of which have originated in New Zealand. “Three in two” is a routine that involves milking cows three times every two days while 16-hour milking intervals are a more rigid interpretation of “three in two” in terms of milking times.

While each of these routines involves fewer milkings per week, some of the milking times can be unsociable, for example early starts and late finishes on the twice-a-day milking day and they also involve two milkings on Sundays every second weekend. The advantage of “10 in seven” is that every weekend involves two milkings with a normal routine on the twice-a-day milking days.

Results

The preliminary results in Table 2 show that the cows milked “10 in seven” for the full lactation produced 10% less milk and 11% less milk solids per cow compared to the cows milked twice a day all season. This is considerably less of a drop in milk yield than the results of the previous once-a-day trial found, for three extra milkings per week. However, the initial results of the part time “10 in seven” treatment are what is really impressive.

The researchers found no significant difference in milk solids yield between the cows milked twice a day all lactation and those milked “10 in seven” for the second half of the lactation.

The cows in the twice-a-day treatment produced 463kg MS/cow, while the cows in the part-time “10 in seven” treatment produced 453kg MS/cow – no significant difference.

The cows on the part-time treatment were milked twice a day as normal until 4 July and then switched to “10 in seven” for the rest of the lactation. Cows in all treatments were fed around 500kg of meal per cow.

“It’s a really impressive result but we need to replicate it again this year to have more confidence in the data. When you think of the time and energy being saved by milking cows less often, as well as the positive benefits on work-life balance and sustainability, you just can’t ignore it as a viable option for farmers,” Emer says.

Fertility performance wasn’t really being measured between the groups but Emer said there was no difference between the treatments and all were within target range.

Body condition score was slightly higher for the full-time “10 in seven” treatment but not significantly.

Somatic cell count was higher in the “10 in seven” treatment with an average SCC of 226,000 in the full-time “10 in seven” group, 208,000 in the part-time group and 114,000 in the twice a day group.

Cows grazing in Moorepark this week.

Emer says that the cows on the “10 in seven” treatments adjusted quickly to the routine and were not upset or bawling at milking times, even though they would see the twice-a-day milking group being brought in for milking.

Some farmers report cows being unsettled or gathering at gaps waiting to come in for evening milking when on 13-times milkings. However, this is not something the researchers at Moorepark experienced but perhaps the cows there are less likely to be fazed by disruption.

In New Zealand, most of the work on flexible milking has been conducted on commercial dairy farms.

Results there show relatively small differences in milk solids yield compared to twice-a-day milking, in the order of a 5% to 10% reduction in milk yield when on “10 in seven” milking.

However, this is not based on a controlled experiment, so it is harder to quantify the true effects.

Emer Kennedy is running the same experiment again this year to see if the results from 2022 can be replicated.

The next step then should be to roll it out on to commercial farms and measure the results in terms of animal performance and labour efficiency.

One of the main drawbacks of “10 in seven” is the fact that milking times on the days the cows are milked once is later in the day.

Many farmers, particularly owner-operators, would prefer to have the cows milked early and have the morning time free for other tasks on the farm, particularly on midweek days.

Of course, there is flexibility in the milking times and farmers can opt to milk earlier on the once-a-day milking days but this is likely to have an impact on milk yield. This is because scientists believe the longer the interval between milkings, the greater the long term impact on yield will be.

So if cows are milked earlier on the once-a-day milking day, that means that the interval to the next milking will be longer.

Another option is to milk twice a day every day of the week with both Saturday and Sunday as once-a-day milking days. This would go a long way towards helping to improve the social aspect of dairy farming.