Milking parlour
A building where cows are milked by machine, standing in rows, in a herringbone or on a rotating platform.
Also: milking shed, rotary parlour, robotic milking
A milking parlour is a dedicated room where cows stand on a raised platform while milking units are attached to their teats, so the milker works at a comfortable height. Common layouts include the herringbone, where cows stand at an angle in two rows, the parallel and the rotary, in which cows step onto a slowly turning platform. Since the 1990s robotic milking systems have let cows choose when to be milked, with a robot arm finding the teats by laser or camera. On small farms in South Asia and Africa many cows are still milked by hand, in sheds and courtyards, often with the calf beside them.