NZ Butter 

Milking Process

 

The two most common approaches of milking used nowadays are the herringbone and rotary milking shed. These are the developed forms of the walk-through milking shed approach which initially started as hand milking (Paden, 2014). The milker does not need to bend down in either of the milking processes as cows are milked on a raised platform (Dairy Australia, 2014).

 

 

The herringbone milking shed shown in figure 1, consists of two rows where cows walk in and stand on either side to be milked. The farmer is positioned at the pit in the centre (Paden, 2014). The suction cup is attached to the cow’s teats (Dairy Australia, 2014). The suction cup is a milking machine consisting of four teat cups attached to a claw which is shown in figure 2 (Hurley, 2010).  The claw is further attached to two tubes, a vacuum and a milk tube (Hurley, 2010). This imitates the action of a calf and sucks the milk out of the cow’s teats. The milk then goes through the milk tube which is then filtered and cooled before it is placed in a vat where the milk is stored and refrigerated at a temperature of 4 degrees celcius (ProCon, 2014). The suction cup is then removed and cows move out of the shed from the front allowing a new group of cows to move into the stalls to be milked (Paden, 2014).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                         Figure 1                                                    Figure 2

 

 

                                                            

 

The rotary milking shed as illustrated in figure 3 is a platform that rotates at a slow pace. The cows step onto the platform and a labourer places a suction cup onto the cow (Paden, 2014). Once one full rotation is almost completed the suction cup is automatically removed by the machine (Paden, 2014).  The cow then moves out in a backward direction. This creates room for a new cow to step onto the rotating platform (Paden, 2014). Milk is drawn from the teats and stored in the same method to the herringbone shed (Paden, 2014). Milk is then transported to various dairy production companies within 24-48 hours (ProCon, 2014).  This is because milk should not be stored in the vat for a long period of time.  

 

 

 

 

 

                                                       

                   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                               Figure 3

 

These two milking processes increase efficiency as more cows can be milked at once without the need of many labourers. One milker in the herringbone process can milk 80 cows within an hour compared to 350 cows in the rotary milking shed (Dairy Australia, 2014). As a result, farmers tend to use the rotary system of milking when dealing with large amounts of cows (RFL group, 2014).