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Understanding the Collect Cows List in Horizon
If you run an Automated Milking System (AMS), you’ve probably asked yourself this: Should I fetch that cow, or should I wait? It’s a fine line between getting more milk in the tank and doing more work than necessary.
For those transitioning from conventional milking, the urge to fetch is real. You’re used to that predictable 12-hour milking schedule, so when a cow stretches her interval a little longer, it’s tempting to step in. And hey, when incentive days roll around, the pressure to ship more milk doesn’t help either! But here’s the catch—if you’re not careful, your cows might end up training you instead of the other way around.
Who’s Training Who?
A great way to keep things in check is by tracking the percentage of cows going over a 14-hour interval. Cows don’t speak English, but trust me, they’ll let you know (loud and clear) if your system is working—or if you’re micromanaging them into bad habits.
Take this real-life example: A farm had set its fetching criteria early on but hadn’t really tweaked it over time. Over-fetching became the norm, and milk visits were lower than expected. Eventually, they realized the cows had flipped the script—they weren’t training their cows; their cows were training them!
After fine-tuning the fetching criteria, they went from fetching 7.8% of the herd per bout to just 1.3%, all while improving overall milkings per cow per day. Less fetching, more milking—now that’s a win!
Time for a Quick Review
So, when’s the last time you reviewed your Collect Cows list? Take a few minutes to make sure your fetching criteria are actually helping you—not just keeping your cows in charge. Small adjustments can make a big difference in both labor and production.
Solution
This explains how to use the collect cow task to fetch cows based on specific settings. The settings can be customized to fit the preferences of different farms. Here are the key points:
Collect Cow Settings:
Navigate to: Manage -> Milk -> Collect cows to find the settings screen.
Note: the settings override the milking access, meaning a cow on the retrieval list will always have milking access.
Milking Time:
Set the hours cows should not be shown and the hours they should always appear.
Example: Cows with less than 7 hours since the last successful milking will not appear, while those with more than 14 hours will always appear.
Average of Milkings in Graph:
Configure the chart divided into early lactation, mid-lactation, and late lactation.
Set the number of milkings to determine when a cow will be added to the list.
Example: Cows with fewer than 2.5 average milkings and more than a 7-hour milk interval will be displayed up to 60 days in lactation.
Average of Milkings Explained:
The average of milkings is calculated with an extra rule considering the average failure rate.
Example: A cow with 1.9 milkings and 1.71 failures would have a combined average of 2.9 milkings.
Exceeded Interval:
Each cow has a set number of milkings according to the milking access table.
Example: A cow allowed to be milked 4 times a day will appear on the list if not milked for 12 hours.
Figure 4: Interval Exceeded Additional Settings:
Configure settings for cows to appear on the list if they have experienced a failed milking, a reminder, or need to be milked immediately.
Figure 5: Additional Settings For more information or questions, contact your FMS Specialist
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