Selection of appropriate milking machine/system

System design

For milking on the individual farm you need to specify a plant that best meets the requirements on the particular farm.

• You need to consider how many cows, whether they are tied up or loose and to what extent they are pasture fed.
• You need to know actual and intended yield levels as well as calving patterns.
• Labor cost, qualifications and availability will decide level of automation.
• Technical matters like existing buildings, access to electric power, water quality and availability and access roads will influence plant specifications.
• Financing and operation costs have to be considered.
• Local laws and regulations have to be considered.

Points to be considered

• Technically you have to design the vacuum system to handle milk extraction, milk transport and cleaning.
• It has to operate with a stable level to assure optimal extraction.
• It has to consider disturbances like kicked off units or air inlet during putting on the unit.
• It has to have a capacity to transport the milk without too strong agitation which will harm the milk quality.
• Finally it has to have a capacity giving strong turbulence in the cleaning water during the cleaning process.
• The pulsation system has to give gentle milking with sufficient capacity to handle high flows of milk without harming teats during low flows. You want the milking to be fast but not harmful.
• The capacity for milking has to be matched by the cooling capacity to safeguard the milk quality.
• Automation is mostly seen as a way to save on labor cost, but automation can also be a quality assurance by safeguarding a certain work process.