Alan Emery on Milk
At Yaverland, they had an abreast parlour when the milk went straight through and into a ‘D’ pan and it was cooled over a surface cooler, which for the 60 cows it was just about adequate, but as the numbers increased it was hopelessly inadequate and milking was taking … yes, that’s quite interesting, it opens up another thought, milking was taking 2 ½ to 3 ½ hours which was far far too long and so we had to have something done about it.
Eventually … this is where dates now I just can’t possibly remember when we did this, we built a purpose built … first of all we called in one of these well-known milking manufacturers and they were only too pleased to advise us and they designed a plan , a plot and everything and we finished up with a circular milking machine called a … now wait a minute … a carousel and a circular collecting yard with a great big gate that swept the cows slowly in and automatic feeding, computerised feeding and all mod cons really.
The Cowman stood down in the pit in the middle and the animals went round.
He didn’t have to bend his back at all really, everything was done at waist high and the cows came through and the cows were all branded on their neck with a number and one of my weekly chores which was to go and record the milk, record the days recording and of course the milk recorder used to come as well but I did it weekly and then we worked out the rations according to the … the concentrated rations according to the yield and then the Herdsman and I used to put it into the computer once a week.
He used to put it in and I used to call out what it was and he would enter it so that … when the first cow that came in they were all branded on the side of the neck for that parlour, as they came in he could see number 31, 32 whatever it was and he just put 32 on the computer and the appropriate amount of food was then dispensed into the trough in front of him. And they went round eight cows at a time went round this thing that was stop, go.
It didn’t keep going all the time. The Cowman could put the machine on, and then the next cow and she could go out automatically through one door and the next cow used to come in behind it. Milking suddenly became a joy instead of a …instead of 2 ½ hours we cut it down to I don’t know what it was, about 2 hours, an hour and three quarters ‘cos the numbers had been going up all the time.
