A walk-through weigher for dairy cows

Abstract The development of a walk-through weigher for recording of dairy cows leaving a milking parlour is described. An electronic circuit involving a continuous averaging technique and peak hold facilities is used for obtaining each cow's weight from a suitably modified, commercially available, weigh crate. Results taken during 9 months of field trials indicate that, with automatic identification and suitable data processing capability, liveweight trends can be established automatically with greater reliability than can be achieved with manual weighing once a month.