A method of automatically milking animals, such as cows, which are allowed to move freely in an area (1) intended therefore and to visit individually a milking parlor (9) comprising a fully automatic milking machine or milking robot (14) and an animal identification system (20), comprises the steps of dynamically assigning a milking qualification parameter to each of the animals that are allowed to move freely in said area, the respective milking qualification parameter indicating the degree of suitability that the respective animal, to which the milking qualification parameter is assigned, shall be milked; dynamically ranking the animals in accordance with their respective milking qualification parameters; and milking an animal during a visit to the milking parlor only if said animal is identified as belonging to the X highest ranked animals, i.e. the X animals that are best suited to be milked from a milk production optimization viewpoint, X being a positive integer.
