Improvement of milk quality by the Danish AMS self-monitoring progranme

The bulk milk quality of Danish farms were specifically surveyed acid a self-monitoring programme was established to help farmers in the transition period going from conventional to automatic milking. The programme reduced bulk milk cell count compared with conventional milking whereas farms that started out milking automatically without the programme increased the cell count significantly. The programme did not reduce the frequency of high total bacterial counts and freezing points of the bulk milk to the Level of conventional milking. The programme proves that additionally support to detect chronically and clinically infected cows is needed when milking automatically. We need to put more emphasis on bacterial counts and freezing points in the milk but the data suggest that technical more than management failures are causing these high numbers.