Monday, 23 May 2011 15:15
Show me a Jersey cow with four evenly formed teats and I’ll happily milk her out by hand. The fact is that all the Jersey cows that I’ve had over the years, have at least one teat that you just can’t get a good grip onto and consequently milk is running down my hands and contaminates the milk.
The Jersey cow that I’m milking at present is certainly a case to reckon with, as both her back teats are very hard to grasp and milking her has always been an ordeal. A few weeks ago I had the brilliant idea of looking for a milking machine and I thought how this chore could be very much improved upon. I set out to find one on ebay, and I didn’t have to look very far as there was a company selling them from Brisbane for a price that I could afford.
For the princely sum of $1,350 I found a brand new machine from RNI Imports and they service and sell the spare parts as well. I was absolutely thrilled and couldn’t wait to milk my cow with my new ‘Dairymaid’ milking machine. The excitement soon wore off though, when the difficulty of getting the cups to stay on to the teats surely defeated me. I rang up a friend who works in local dairies as a locum, and fortunately he soon found the time to come and pay me a visit and check out my new milking machine. No trouble at all when you know how!
The tricky part is that a vacuum needs to build up into the milking chamber so that a suction action is created through the four cups that are then attached to the teats of the cow. I was shown how to kink one of the hoses to block off the air supply and then kink the first two cups to block off the air supply there and then place the two back cups against the teats of the cow and checking the air pressure guage. With all hands, feet and eyes on deck I finally managed to get the cups to stay on and milk her out entirely for the first time ever. It certainly is a relief to know that I’m getting every last drop out of her without working up a sweat.
Cleaning the machine is very easy. It takes two buckets of warm water, one with some planet friendly detergent in it for the wash and another bucket with warm water and some hydrogen peroxide for the rinse and sterilizer. It’s then a matter of plunging the cups into the bucket and switching the machine on and the water is sucked up through the system to clean out any milk residue.
Milking the cow is much easier now and it takes less time than by hand and this is important for me as there are days when I need to get away by 8.30 am to teach my classes. Hands free milking seems to me the self sufficiency of the 21st century and it certainly helps me to get on with my morning chores on the farm. You can contact RNI Imports by email rniimports@gmail.com or phone 0422 561217.