[ballingall]

Well, we bought a milking machine in December trying to beat the VAT increase, as we knew we wanted one for this spring. It was delivered very quickly, and I upwrapped it, to find there was no instruction manual. I emailed the company, and they said, oh terribly sorry, we'll post you another one. In the meantime, I located a piece of A4 paper which had some instructions on how to use the machine, but nothing on how to put it together or how to clean it.

So after a few days, the post came, and along from the milking maching people came....


the same piece of A4 that we already had.

So we eventually screwed up the courage to try to put it together and use it this week. I put it together, and had to guess where some of the tubes plugged in. We tryed it out on Evita, as her owner (she is on loan to me) uses a milking machine, so she was used to it. However, we couldn't get the suction to work properly, so we eventually gave up and I milked her by hand.

Alex then got the suction working properly, and we decided to try Surf with it, who had never been exposed to a milking maching before. She was actually ver good, and stood very still. However, the flow of milk in the machine didn't go where we expected it to. Sadly, none of thought to switch it of, and instead we waited until she was fully milked before switching it off.

Then all her milk cascaded out of the bottom of the generater part......


Ooops.

[ballingall]

So after thinking we had completely ruined the milking machine, which cost 1k, and a small amount of panic of swearing. We left the machine for about 1/2 an hour, and then switched it back on to see if it worked. Remarkabley, it actually did work. A bit of a swap with the tubing around, and it successfully sucked through 2 rinses of water.


So onto the next evening, and we tried again. This time we successfully milked both the 2nd kidders, Surf and Evita, and also Romily who is running through. The machine is very quick to work, though our goats aren't quite used enough to it yet for us to go away and leave them and do other things. They need someone pretty handy in case they kick off the clusters.

My mum isn't using it in the morning yet, but will start soon as this will make things easier.

The only downside we have found, is that for some reason using the milking machine seems to give Romily clots in her udder. She suffered from them a little after she kidded last year, but hadn't had them since. It is definitely not mastitis, but when we milk her by hand she doesn't get them??!

Beth

[Rosemary]

Could the suction be too hard for her?

Wish you'd had some video of your exploits 

[ballingall]

Lol, no videos! It wouldn't have been good viewing. I will eventually take some pictures of them being milked on the machine to post up.

Beth

[Roxy]

I was tempted a while back when I was milking a couple of goats, and rushing to get to work ......and just recently saw a second hand one a few miles from me, well, second hand, but never used. Perhaps like you, they had no instructions with it??

Anyway, had a giggle at your experience, and think I will stick with my bucket, and hand milk, with just the occasional kick over of the bucket.  And my OH would say my version is MUCH cheaper......he hates spending money.

It must be pretty strange for the goats at first to have the clusters on......  Does the machine switch off itself once the goat is fully milked if you have gone off to do other things.  Just imagining a fully milked goat and the machine still trying to extract milk.

[ballingall]

No it doesn't switch itself off, so you can't go far away. At the moment I am using the time to brush out some their coats which they are casting!


I must stop posting here, I am being distracted, I am supposed to be looking up pedigrees, filling in my Highland Show entries (online for the first time) and emailing a bloke back about a male kid....


Beth