RAPID MILKING

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6815, 19 January 1929, Page 12

RAPID MILKING

An Important Factor

Milking, according to Mr. James JdacKintosh, of the National Institute of Research in Dairying (Britain), should be carried out as quickly, quietly and thoroughly as possible. Quickness in milking results not only in saving of time, but also in an increased return. The increase might bo as much as ten per cent, in yield and up to forty per cent, in butter-fat. These contentions were made before an English agricultural discussion society by Mr. MacKintosh recently. He further stated that no good milker should be content with less than nine cows per hour. The time required to milk any one cow, he said, would vary with the yield and the ease with which the cow could be milked. Cows giving a large yield might be milked at the rate of three to four pounds per minute, but the average rate of milking was probably about half that quantity. Thorough milking meant very careful stripping out. This was most important, because the strippings were very rich in fat. Tests which had been made showed that in milk from a completed milking which averaged four per cent, of fat the percentage in the stripping amounted to from eight to ten per - cent. Insufficient stripping, therefore, meant a loss of the richest portion of the milk, and a reduced output of butter or cheese, and it also tended to the drying off of cows. Various methods of massaging the quarters of the udder had been recommended from time to time as a means of securing the maximum yield, but the time required for that was only well spent when the cows had been badly milked in the ordinary way. Heifers should always be gently and patiently treated, and carefully milked throufhout the first milking period. There was much difference of opinion on wet versus dry milking. The adverages of wet milking were that the skin of the teat was made flexible and responded more readily to the pressure of the fingers, and that a lubricant was provided to facilitate the movement of the milker’s fingers. But the method of wet milking adopted by many milkers, namely, that of moistening the hands with milk, and then grasping the teat, which might or might not have been cleaned previously had only to be seen to be condemned as a dirty habit. If the teats were cleaned before milking and the milkers washed their hands frequently, both teats and bands were made sufficiently pliable..