Cameron* was feeling comfortable.

The expansion plan for the family farm had gone well. He had secured a long term lease on the block next door, added another 50 cows (with plans for more), extended the dairy shed, and employed a labour unit to assist the family on the farm.

The new season had started well. It had been a wet spring, but there had been very little clinical mastitis during calving and the spring, and the farm’s Bulk Milk Cell Count (BMCC) had sat comfortably below 150,000 cells/ml all that time.

But as they moved into summer, things started to come unstuck.

Recent milking time visits to a number of different dairy sheds have reminded me that “normal” means different things to different people.

Cup removal is always an interesting part of the milking routine to observe – in both manual and automatic systems.