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How dairy robots are changing work for cows and farmers

(spectrum.ieee.org)
225 points DonHopkins | 1 comments | 15 Apr 25 22:26 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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unclad5968 ◴[15 Apr 25 22:49 UTC] No.43699358[source]▶
It's cool that this allows the cows to be milked whenever they feel like it. I'd imagine the autonomy actually does improve the cow's quality of life. Also neat that they learned to game the feeding robot. It reminds me of the image recognition experiments they do with birds.
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ErigmolCt ◴[16 Apr 25 06:27 UTC] No.43702128[source]▶
The fact that cows can self-schedule is kind of amazing
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1. ahartman00 ◴[16 Apr 25 20:56 UTC] No.43710302[source]▶
They aren't really scheduling though. They can feel when their udders get full. It actually can be painful if you don't milk them on time. Its comparable to eating or drinking, they go eat when they feel hunger. It is pretty cool that they learn to associate the machine though, its not like it smells the way food does, or like there is any instinct involved.