Portable Milking machine

TooOldBoots

I'm currently rearing 12 calves off 4 cows. Its painful work trying to line em up to suck but the calves reared from cows milk are far superior to calves I'm bucket rearing with powder milk.
Would it be worth my while getting a portable milking machine like this one

My thinking is that I could milk up to 10 cows at a time with it. This would allow me to rear more calves from cows milk.
Anyone doing this, and is it too much hassle?

Donald Trump

Have honestly never seen a contraption like that before. How would you plan to have them stand quietly with an engine running behind them?


Here is another portable milking option




Being a bit more serious. You have 12 calves running on 3 cows.....why are you trying to milk the cows as well??

TooOldBoots

No 12 calves to 4 cows, they get to suck twice a day.
I just want to reduce cost of the calf rearing by being able to provide more cows milk rather than buying in expensive milk replacer.
Maybe I'd be better off going down the line of a second hand milking parlour if noise is an issue. I've never used one of those portable machines before but it runs off an electric motor so I'm not sure there would me much noise from it. I'll have to check

_Brian

Firstly thats a really hard way to rear calves..


If you buy a cheap mobile machine like that it will break your heart, unless they have improved dramatically they are notoriously hard to keep running right.. Anything of any quality is silly money. Parts are hard got for the cheap ones so as soon as a pulsator or vacuum pump gives much trouble its dead.

TooOldBoots wrote: »

I'm currently rearing 12 calves off 4 cows. Its painful work trying to line em up to suck but the calves reared from cows milk are far superior to calves I'm bucket rearing with powder milk.
Would it be worth my while getting a portable milking machine like this one

My thinking is that I could milk up to 10 cows at a time with it. This would allow me to rear more calves from cows milk.
Anyone doing this, and is it too much hassle?

Gillespy

Hired a single unit one a few years ago to milk a cow after a hard calving. DeLaval place but I'm sure if it was DeLaval or not. Very quite and did a good job. Father wanted to buy one before knowing they hire them. Haven't needed one since.

1373

We have a single unit one in the calving box for milking calved cows . They are a brilliant machine, have ours 7 years, used every day during calving season

Base price

TooOldBoots wrote: »

I'm currently rearing 12 calves off 4 cows. Its painful work trying to line em up to suck but the calves reared from cows milk are far superior to calves I'm bucket rearing with powder milk.
Would it be worth my while getting a portable milking machine like this one

My thinking is that I could milk up to 10 cows at a time with it. This would allow me to rear more calves from cows milk.
Anyone doing this, and is it too much hassle?

Can you not leave the calves with the cows in separate pens. We have 10 calves on three cows. One with 2, one with 3 and a fresh calver with 5. Each cow is in her own pen with the calves. The cow with two took to them, the one with three will let one calf suck (a lim) but not the other two (bwh's) so I give her a bucket of meal twice a day and stand with her whilst the two bwh's drink. They are copping on to the job though and I noticed that one of them was sucking on the same side as the lim this afternoon. The fresh calver with the five would let the dogs suck her she is that quiet.
If you have the time and patience and your cows are nice then calves normally cop onto the job in a week.

Siamsa Sessions

Would you consider taking one calf off each cow and putting them in with the bucket fed ones?

I know you'd lose a bit on their performance then, but you'd half the work for yourself.

kerryjack

Love your enthusiasm for work, handy looking machine for milking a few cows, might be better option than suckling, the way things are going you would want to be thinking of self sufficiently could keep milk for house make your own yougart and butter and cheese.

Base price

A pic this morning of the fresh calver with the 5 calves.

148multi

TooOldBoots wrote: »

I'm currently rearing 12 calves off 4 cows. Its painful work trying to line em up to suck but the calves reared from cows milk are far superior to calves I'm bucket rearing with powder milk.
Would it be worth my while getting a portable milking machine like this one

My thinking is that I could milk up to 10 cows at a time with it. This would allow me to rear more calves from cows milk.
Anyone doing this, and is it too much hassle?

Can you erect a crush with just two top bars, calves for one side in one pen, for other side in another pen. They learn quick when options are reduced.

kerryjack

Base price wrote: »

A pic this morning of the fresh calver with the 5 calves.

She has a good bag on her looks like a high cell counter and she is saved from the slather house for now I have heard of double suckling is there s name for this.

einn32

TooOldBoots wrote: »

I'm currently rearing 12 calves off 4 cows. Its painful work trying to line em up to suck but the calves reared from cows milk are far superior to calves I'm bucket rearing with powder milk.
Would it be worth my while getting a portable milking machine like this one

My thinking is that I could milk up to 10 cows at a time with it. This would allow me to rear more calves from cows milk.
Anyone doing this, and is it too much hassle?

I reckon you're better off suckling them. I used one of them before and nearly killed myself. I caught it and threw it over a wall so to speak. Unless you have a serious set up the cow will move from side to side, you have to squat to get her cupped up, the vacuum can be poor so as not to milk her properly. When it works it's grand but it wasn't very often it worked well. I was using it for fresh calvers and downer cows though.

Base price

kerryjack wrote: »

She has a good bag on her looks like a high cell counter and she is saved from the slather house for now I have heard of double suckling is there s name for this.

She has a high cell count. She is a young cow on her 4th lactation and we bought her from a dairy farmer friend. We also bought two other cows that calved during the Winter at the same time and they are rearing five calves. One has three spins rearing two calves and the other is rearing three.

When I was a teenager I spent my pocket/baby sitting money buying continental bred calves to multi-suck cull FR cows that I bought from my neighbours.

Markcheese

I'd have thought that if the cow is quiet enough to let you put the milking machine on her ,then she'd be quiet enough to let you put calves on her ... A calving crush type of thing ,( preferably with access both sides ) and meal would definitely be easier than. The same set up and milking her and then feeding the calves ...

K.G.

Base price wrote: »

She has a high cell count. She is a young cow on her 4th lactation and we bought her from a dairy farmer friend. We also bought two other cows that calved during the Winter at the same time and they are rearing five calves. One has three spins rearing two calves and the other is rearing three.

When I was a teenager I spent my pocket/baby sitting money buying continental bred calves to multi-suck cull FR cows that I bought from my neighbours.

Done a bit of this during the years always found it easy enough to get them going.nothing complicated in the setup just a crush with a a swing gate that can open out.stall cow and let them at her.personally 3 calves is enough for most cows
The fun part is weaning

kerryjack

If you had 10 of those type cows and calved them down to good continental bull and milked them and bought in 20 FR bull calves for 20 euro a piece and pumped milk in to them for 6 months you would have 30 mighty calves for slaughter at 6 months. But of course no market for veal meat in this country
Why is veal meat not eaten in this country.
Like we have no problem eating a lamb that's 6 months old but when it comes to calves it's a no no. We killed a 6 month old FR heifer with a bad leg here once and she went down a treat. We need a veal market in this country and Board bia should get behind it.