TAI TAPU FAMILY BUILD OWN MILKING SHED

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28992, 5 September 1959, Page 9

TAI TAPU FAMILY BUILD OWN MILKING SHED

Eighteen months of spare time work on the part of a Tai Tapu farmer, Mr R. P. McCarthy, and his sons, Messrs B. A. and P. McCarthy, has produced a milking shed with some excellent features. By doing the job themselves, apart from the welding of galvanised pipes and the electrical installation, Mr McCarthy believes that they have saved about £lOOO. The shed, which is 64ft long and 18ft wide with five bails is of the raised bail or stoopless type. Concrete blocks have been used in its construction and on the inside of the shed these have been plastered over and finished in a soft blue pastel tone. Some 90 yards of shingle were used on the job. Cows come into the yard through a footbath and then up a ramp where there is a pressure hose for washing down the bags. This hose, which hangs on the railing alongside the ramp, is quite an ingenious device. When it is picked up it goes into action and when it is put down it goes off automatically. Along the raised section at the back of the shed there are two races. The entry of the cows into

the front race is - controlled by a gate which can be operated from the control race at all but the last of the bails. It works on the principle of metal pipes running in other pipes and there are a series of levers along the front of the bails to work the control gate. The five raised bails in which the cows stand side on to the milking attendant are gleaming metal compartments with entrance and exit gates on a slight angle. These gates* can also be worked from the control race. The bails and gates are the design of the McCarthys and Mr J. White.

As the cows are finished they move along the front race and round into the back race and out the way they came in. Recesses at each bail facilitate the fitting of the cups. Set in the galvanised piping almost right round the yard are some 48 irrigation type nozzles which play a fine spray over the yard, so that by keeping the area constantly moist, cleaning is ultimately easier with four hydrants at each corner of the yard. Water comes from a 140 ft deep well which delivers 1600 gallons an hour on free flow and 2300 gallons with a pump.

Milk from the cows’ udders flows by gravity along a pipe lipe to a stainless steel milk tank in the dairy and from here it is pumped into a cooler. Cans sit under the cooler and can be slid out of the dairy on to a waiting truck along metal runners laid on the floor.