HandySelect: simple and effective sorting of individual cows
The Bou-Matic Air-Trac crowd gate is a parlorentry system, which gently nudges cows corralled in a holding pen toward the milking parlor entrance for milking. Two types of gate operation are available with the gate system: standard manual operation and automatic-crowd. For standard manual operation, the user initiates all gate functions; opening, closing and moving. While for automatic-crowd operation , the gate works in conjunction with the entrance gate to crowd cows automatically. With the auto-crowd option the user does not need to initiate forward movement of the gate.
Cow flow through a parlor can be improved by 10-20% if a crowd gate is properly managed. One of the major problems with cow flow is people not allowing the crowd gate to train the cows to enter the parlor but instead they chase the cows into the parlor. Cows are easily confused when one milking they are supposed to enter the parlor when the crowd gate moves and the next milking when people come out to the holding area and chases them into the parlor. If cows are properly trained by using the crowd gate, the door from the parlor pit to the holding area can be kept closed during milking.
