Mechanical milking of goats

Abstract

With mechanical milking, the number of goats milked per man hour, which is the best mesure of the effectiveness of the man and the machine, may be independent of milking speed of individual goats, provided the number of milking units is not a limiting factor. The need to improve labour productivity may impose considerable simplification of milking routines, such as omitting udder washing, machine stripping and one weekly milking, milking at unequal intervals and milking only once daily towards the end of lactation. The losses associated with these simplifications appear mostly acceptable in the interest of increased efficiency : today up to 240 goats could be milked per man hour without adverse mastitis problems, in a well designed parlour operated by a skillful milker using a simplified milking routine. Little work has been done on designing a milking machine for goats. However, a higher pulsation rate (70 to 100 p/min) than for cows, a pulsation ratio of 50 to 70 % and a vacuum level of 36 to 44 kPa are recommended. Other characteristics such as milk line elevation, teat cup liner, cluster weight and claw volume are less important. Claw volume and vacuum pump capacities are often higher than for cows but there is no clear evidence than this is justified.