MILKING MACHINES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 71, Issue 6140, 24 September 1945, Page 4

MILKING MACHINES

FARMER’S EXPERIMENTS BENEFITS PASSED ON TO PRODUCERS For a period of years Mr F. E. Harris, of Walton, has conducted exhaustive experiments with milking machines, his object being to complete milking more efficiently and expeditiously, and thereby lessen, farmers’ lengthy periods in cowsheds. That he has succeeded to a. very large extent is now common knowledge. He has proved to the satisfaction of many farmers that after slight alterations to machines cows not only milk quicker, but that stripping is unnecessary. In conjunction with the D.P.A., of which he is a member, and which arranges meetings, Mr Harris, by means of interesting lectures, has passed on tha knowledge so gained co the distinct benefit of farmers from Tirau in the south to Dargavillc -in the north.

The lectures are open to all farmers in their respective areas, and already large numbers of machines have been altered to conform to Mr Harris’ ideas. He contends that some milking machines have deteriorated since first produced 45 years ago, and were it tioi for the. many extra gadgets attached farmers would bo losing still more cows than at present. When it was considered that any number up to 33 per cent, of herds went out every year, and that the dairy farmer was responsible for one-third of the meat which was exported from New Zealand, it was high time something was done to counteract such a terrific .loss.

A good machine was a herd stabiliser. Any farmer could take a herd and milk it with a good machine, and would find that the herd would not vary to any great extent. To-day the practice seemed to be to get behind the inflation and punch it with big port pulsators and fifteeh pounds of vacuum, which sooner or later would ruin the cows. When air was taken through the claws into the machine it expanded outwards and filled the pipe. Pulsators pulled air through the airline into the machine, and 95 per cent, of machines to-day had two pipes into the releaser when only one was needed It required a two horse-power motor to empty air out of 80 feet of pipe ii. a milking plant, and very frequently the pump ran hot, which showed the terrific back pressure; it also made the milk in the releaser churn. Although the farmer was diffident in the matter of altering his plant, it was necessary to have two separate lines all the way, coming from the top of the releasor to the pump, provided the air could be taken, into the machine and taken out faster than it went in. Farmers would then overcome a lot of the quarter trouble in the herds.

In many machines farmers had to pull off the cups before the cows were finished to save quarter trouble. However, Mr Harris advised that if the back pressure were taken out by the pump the cups could be left on until the cows were finished without harming them. With the double lead into the pump and a reasonable vacuum the cups would not fall off, but wouh milk cows dry with no stripping required. Many dairy industry experts stated there was nothing to stop doubling up, which was the right way to milk cows. Ono and threequarter inch pipe would carry ten machines. When a cow walked into a shed where doubling up was used she would let down her milk right away. In fact, in the flush of the season, if the cups were not put on, she would start to milk on the concrete.. If a fanner took out the crosses, thereby eliminating bottlenecks, and replaced them with bends he would streamline his plant. To-day most machines had a lot of crosses which Mr Harris considered definitely detrimental to the plant’s efficiency. Upon examination of the vacuum tank it would be seen that there were two distinct marks on the baffle plate opposite the air pipes, which proved it to be an obstruction in getting air into the plant quickly. Some machines had one inch pipes from the vacuum tank to the pump. A second hole in a vacuum pump, a 11 inch pipe from the releaser, and the elimination of all crosses, would make the machine milk more speedily. In doubling up a six-cow plant a 13 inch pipe was needed, but most machines to-day, no matter what size or number of cups, had only l.f inch pipe into the pump. In doubling up the cups, the better the pulsators would work. Milk must go straight to. the releaser, without gadgets and

obstructions, which meant that faster milking would be achieved with less quarter trouble.

Concluding, Mr Harris stated that the most important part of a machine, the relief value, must go between the vacuum tank and the pump,, otherwise a true vacuum would not be left in the machine, and the air intake would add to the back pressure already m the machine. The pump should he made with the valve screwed into the pump itself.