Milking

Delaval Bucket Milker

I get asked how do we milk fairly often.  So, here it is.   We use a DeLaval bucket milker with a newer Superflow claw.  The bucket is old but the claw is new.  The bucket is not a paper thin one that you see them making today but extremely well built and durable.  This is a great set up the only problem is the bucket alone weighs 18 lbs empty.  After milking its very heavy to say the least.

We tried milking our cows by hand and found that it didn’t work very well.

First, the teats on our cows are very short and need to be stripped.  Stripping is when you squeeze your fingers together at the top and pull all the way to the bottom.  It takes a lot of muscle and your hands cramp up when you’ve got about a quart.  The modern dairy cow has been bred for short teats that are uniform that work well with milk machines.  Both of our dairy cows we are milking at this time have teats to small for my big hands to hand milk.

Second,  we found it to be pretty unsanitary.  Hair from the cow and other things would fall off during milking and the milk wasn’t clean.  Most hand milkers can get away with this when they lay      a cloth or filter on the top of the bucket and milk through that.   Since our cows required so much effort to hand milk that we spent more time bumping around than we needed to, and the cow gets antsy and starts to dance around which doesn’t help.

How much does one cost?  A setup like this with the pump runs from $875-$1200.  A surge  belly milker with pump can run cheaper at $600-$1000.  The main price issue is the vacuum pump and the quality or lack there of.