Objective measuring technique for teat dimensions of dairy cows

Interaction between the teat and the teatcup liner can strongly affect the milking characteristics and udder health of dairy cows. Therefore, teat morphology is an important parameter in choosing the most appropriate liner. Nevertheless, information on teat morphology is scarce and rarely sufficient for liner selection. Current techniques for measuring teat morphology are subjective, not always accurate and time consuming, and gathering such information on large scale is difficult. This study presents a new vision based measuring technique that uses a camera to obtain a 2D image of the teat and image processing analysis to determine teat length and diameters. The technique was shown to be accurate. Errors were generally limited to 5% for both teat length and diameters and were less than 2% when the angle of the teat in the longitudinal direction was small.

► New measuring technique for teat dimensions using image analysis developed. ► The method is accurate: errors are generally <5%. ► If the teat is straight in the device: errors are <2%. ► Allows investigation of teat morphology – liner design – udder health.