Portable milking machine

Greengrass1

Anyone have one?
Thinking of investing in one just from point of view of getting colostrum out of a cow easily after calving instead of having to run her into parlour if im on my own.

Presume electric is the one to go for

kowtow

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Anyone have one?
Thinking of investing in one just from point of view of getting colostrum out of a cow easily after calving instead of having to run her into parlour if im on my own.

Presume electric is the one to go for

Theres a crowd up in the Midlands - Stradbally? - who have them in the store tho not sure if they are the electric ones. They are also the agents for PEL fencers IIRC.

We've ended up with what passes for a calving pen next to the machine room for the dairy so am tempted to run an extra PVC vaccuum line across to power a bucket & pulsator.

patsy_mccabe

Sorry to go off thread but always wondered about this. When you put a freshly calved cow through the parlour, how do you handle the beastings? I know there's a diverter valve, but won't the line up to the valve be contaminated.

ganmo

Think I heard a price of 600 for one at last years ploughing

Sam Kade

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Sorry to go off thread but always wondered about this. When you put a freshly calved cow through the parlour, how do you handle the beastings? I know there's a diverter valve, but won't the line up to the valve be contaminated.

I used a beastings bucket and flush the claw piece after milking.

Greengrass1

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Sorry to go off thread but always wondered about this. When you put a freshly calved cow through the parlour, how do you handle the beastings? I know there's a diverter valve, but won't the line up to the valve be contaminated.

Into a dump bucket here

Cow Porter

How far away is calving pen from parlour? Seen lads with ordinary 1 inch water pipe from vac pumps to calving pen

Greengrass1

Cow Porter wrote: »

How far away is calving pen from parlour? Seen lads with ordinary 1 inch water pipe from vac pumps to calving pen

Ah its 60m I'd say.
Bloody fresh cow slipped tonight on way into parlour. Get her up but she's v tender had a rough night last night trying to get a backwards calf out of her

rangler1

kowtow wrote: »

We've ended up with what passes for a calving pen next to the machine room for the dairy so am tempted to run an extra PVC vaccuum line across to power a bucket & pulsator.

I've seen that done on a few farms

mattP

A stool, a bucket of nuts and an empty bucket

whelan2

Greengrass1 wrote: »

Ah its 60m I'd say.
Bloody fresh cow slipped tonight on way into parlour. Get her up but she's v tender had a rough night last night trying to get a backwards calf out of her

leave a few calves on her for a day or 2. How is she today?

Midfield9

Connachtagri had a selection of them at the ploughing. No idea of brand/price

Greengrass1

whelan2 wrote: »

leave a few calves on her for a day or 2. How is she today?

She's grand now. Ran around the field this morning trying to get her in. Collecting yard need to be grooved . Like glass

_Brian

Cow Porter wrote: »

How far away is calving pen from parlour? Seen lads with ordinary 1 inch water pipe from vac pumps to calving pen

This is a common enough thing to see, just need to ensure that if bucket fills or spills that the line needs to be washed through.. gets damn messy otherwise..

Also there are still spades of small units in sheds from old bucket plants.. easy to set up and run independently from main machine and no chance of dumping a bucket of milk into the vacuum pump which I've often seen.. If you had the numbers to warrant it its the way to go..

visatorro

lost a super second calver here over the last week. she calved by herself fine but slipped in yard. tried again a couple of days later she got anxious and slipped again. shes walking around the paddock slowly, no point in bringing her into the yard. was drawing her by hand in paddock but has mastitis now.
even if portable job cost 1000 if it saved a cow a year wouldn't it be worth it.