The goal is to have milking machines that milk cows "quickly", "cleanly" and "gently" - in other words, to efficiently and fully milk the cows without causing teat damage or otherwise increasing the risk of mastitis, and without causing discomfort to the cows.

Typically, an Australian cow will have her teats connected to a milking machine for 50 to 100 hours per lactation, so there is plenty of opportunity for sub-optimal machine function to have a negative effect!

Key features to assess are teat condition, milking times, completeness of milking & cow behaviour.

Because the Dairy Focus Mastitis Risk Assessment includes these assessments (and many more), it is the perfect tool to assess how well your milking system is achieving these goals. 

There are five types of milking machine tests recognised by Countdown and the IDF (International Dairy Federation):

1. Physical measurements are all about the "nuts and bolts" of the milking plant. They include the type and sizing of components including diameter and slopes of pipelines, volumes of clusters and the matching of components to given specifications. This test is done without the machine running.
2. The standard AMMTA test or dry test is the most common test conducted on milking plants in Australia. It is conducted both with and without the plant running, but without any liquid flowing through the pipelines. This test records air consumption of components, vacuum levels, vacuum reserve capacities and pulsation recordings. It also includes the physical measurements described above.This test indicates how the plant performs mechanically - it does not measure how it performs with cows in the dairy and when milking.
3. Wet testing of milking plants uses an artificial udder to test the plant with both liquid and air flowing through it to simulate milking. This is a very good diagnostic and trouble shooting tool, and can be used to give an idea of how the plant is likely to perform at specific milk flow rates.
4. True milking time testing is conducted whilst cows are milking to assess the performance of the plant under normal milking conditions. It is the only way of knowing how the plant is performing under the load of actual milking with cows and milking staff in the dairy, and it is also the best way of measuring the vacuum that cows are actually likely to be experiencing during milking.
5. Cleaning time tests assess the cleaning routine.

Milking time testing gives the best and most direct indication of the actual milking performance of any milking system, allowing fine tuning of key machine settings, such as the vacuum level, to suit each individual herd and milking system.

Milking time testing gives the best and most direct indication of the actual milking performance of any milking system.

Milking time testing is one of the key components of every Dairy Focus Mastitis Risk Assessment and farms enrolled in the Dairy Focus Mastitis Control System have regular assessments to ensure their  milking machines are not increasing the risk of mastitis in their herd.

Milking plants that average 4 hours running time per day will clock up 1460 working hours in a year. Spending this amount of time doing the same routine can get pretty monotonous and we may not notice subtle changes that can be occurring right before our eyes.

Research into milking machine efficiency has shown a wide variety of faults can result from extended use - wear and age can cause gradual changes in performance, and an increase in the risk of mastitis.

Your machines should be fully tested and documented in line with the current AMMTA milking machine testing procedures at least once per year - and more often if you think something is not right. Extra tests should also be done after any service work or upgrades have been done to the plant.

Milking time testing of your machines takes testing and understanding how your machines impact on your cows, their teats and the risk of mastitis to another level.

A key feature of the Dairy Focus Mastitis Control System is regular milking time testing of the machines in addition to routine "dry" AMMTA testing – and the Dairy Focus Mastitis Diary ensures all testing is done when it should be.

Most rubber liners used in Australia have an expected life span of 2500 cow milkings or 6 months, whichever occurs first. The time factor (6 months) is just as important as the number of milkings for determining when they should be changed.

The time factor is just as important as the number of milkings for determining when liners should be changed.

Silicone liners have a longer lifespan; commonly double that of normal rubber based liners (5000 cow milkings).

You can either calculate this yourself, or you could use the Liner Life Calculator tool in the Countdown Mastitis Toolkit app (available free for both iOS and Android smartphones) to help calculate the correct liner change date, and also to send you a reminder when that time arrives.

Liner life calculation

Herds participating in the Dairy Focus Mastitis Control System and/or the Dairy Focus Mastitis Diary have their liner change interval monitored, and are reminded to ensure liners are changed on time, every time.

As liners age they begin to stretch and lose tension, compromising their ability to properly massage the teat and maintain the blood supply.

Excessively worn liners tend to result in:

• Increased milking times
• Increased amounts of milk left in the udder
• Increased risk of teat end damage
• Increased risk of cup slips and falls
• Increased risk of spread of mastitis bacteria

This deterioration is a gradual but steady process which results in a progressive increase in the risk of mastitis - you may not even notice the early changes, but the mastitis risk is steadily increasing.

If you do change your liners and you notice a difference in milking performance, then the old liners were definitely in for too long - and the mastitis risk is likely to have increased significantly.

A key element of the Dairy Focus Mastitis Control System is the Dairy Focus Mastitis Diary which ensures all mastitis related activities, inlcuding liner changes, occur on time every time.

Usually between 0.8 mm and 1.0 mm in diameter, the claw air admission hole is commonly located in the claw itself, either in the metal body of the claw or sometimes in the claw bowl itself. In some cases the air admission hole is located in each of the liners, either in the short milk tube or near the mouthpiece of the liner.

This tiny hole has two key functions in the milking process.

Firstly, the air admission hole allows milk to move away from the claw to the milkline.

Milk, like all liquids, does not run “uphill”. To be able to move upwards in any part of its pathway to the milkline, milk will need to form “slugs” in order to defy gravity, and it needs air to form those slugs.

The air entering the claw through the air admission hole allows those slugs to form and milk can then travel to the milkline.

Hence one of the first signs of a blocked air admission hole is the claw filling with milk as a cow is being milked – because the milk is unable to get away properly.

The second key function of the air admission hole is to allow air to enter the claw at a controlled rate when vacuum is broken at the end of milking to allow cups to be removed.

Otherwise, if there is an effective seal between liners and teats, and no air can enter the claw after vacuum is broken at the end of milking, the cluster will be unable to fall away from the cow, and the only way removal can then occur is by pulling the cups off the cow.

Pulling cups from the cow whilst still under vacuum is both uncomfortbale for the cow, and also allows blasts of air into the claw as the first cup breaks vacuum away from the teat. This causes “impacts” which are blasts of air and milk which travel into the other three quarters of the cow with a very high risk of transmitting mastitis bacteria.

Hence this tiny air admission hole plays a key role in efficient milking and effective mastitis control and it is very important to ensure these holes are kept clean.