Patent ID: 8397669

Claim:
A method for management of animals, wherein the method comprising the steps of: providing an area ( 11 ) including; a plurality of grazing paddocks ( 12 a - f ), in which the animals are allowed to graze, and a milking area ( 13 ) with an automatic milking system ( 13 a ), in which the animals are milked, wherein the milking area is accessible from each of the grazing paddocks and each of the grazing paddocks is accessible from the milking area via a sorting gate arrangement ( 17 a , 17 c ); identifying and milking, in said milking area, each of a plurality of animals which have grazed in the grazing paddocks; monitoring a current time during the milking of each animal; based on a measurement made during milking, establishing a nutritional need of each of the animals being milked; based on another measurement made during milking, establishing a milk production capacity of each of the animals being milked; selecting a grazing paddock for each animal having been milked and leaving the milking area, said selection being made to increase overall milking production of the milking system and being based on i) the monitored current time during the milking of the animal, and ii) a nutritional content of each of the grazing paddocks, the selected grazing paddock depending on said nutritional contents of the grazing paddocks; and automatically guiding, via the sorting gate arrangement, each animal leaving the milking area to enter the selected grazing paddock.