Surge bucket milker

[willow_girl]

Anybody use one of these? Gary just got mine set up today. It is cobbled together from a bunch of stuff we bought at a consignment auction last year. (Small dairy had put in a pipeline.) The Surge Alama vacuum pump didn't come with a motor; Gary rigged one up with an irrigation pump his folks had used to make a waterfall in the water garden in their last house. (If they could only see it now! Heh.) Anyway, the thing worked real good, except we need some stouter hose. We were using 3/4" garden hose, but it started collapsing. Still managed to suck a couple gallons of milk out of Teeny, who has a VERY tight udder. A nightmare to hand milk, I shudder at the thought! She didn't fuss too much either, less than I expected since she was a real hellion in the parlor.

Oh, we did have to get new inflations and rubber hoses. The only rubber part left on the buckets (we got 6 of them for $35) was the gasket under the lid. Out of the 6 buckets, there were 3 vacuum regulators and a couple sets of shells. The guy who consigned the stuff said we could run 4 milkers at once off the vacuum pump. I'm not sure the motor we have on it now is quite powerful enough though. Will probably set it up to do 2 at once eventually!

[myersfarm]

yes i use a delaval milker and have a pipe line also........you can get the hose at a farm store or order it from www.partsdeptonline.com think you might have 3 pulsators instead of vacumm regulators you only need one vacumm regualtor.. to run the whole thing even if you were milk 50 cows......just make sure you use a gauge and only pull around 14 lbs vacumm or you can hurt the cow ......from 12 to 14.5 is most common vacumm.........john

[willow_girl]

Oops, yes I meant pulsator! As you can see, I'm new at this! :baby04:

Thanks for the advice John, the guy at the dairy supply said 15 inches of vacuum, but I will have Gary adjust it down a little. Don't want to rip their teats off! (Yes we have a gauge on it.)

Milked again this morning, Teeny is figuring out how to be a PITA already, in the middle of milking, she laid down on top of the bucket! AUGHHHHH! Rotten cow! Rotten, I tell ya ...

(She must have talked to the mare who used to try a similar stunt while I was riding her.)

[dosthouhavemilk]

We have Delaval milkers. We have the old bucket system as opposed to pipelines.
You should probably replace the lid gaskets. The rubber parts need replaced fairly often.


The three milkers after being rinsed.

Janeal being milked a couple years back.

Should look familiar.
This is Hale Bopp. She has a tendency to lay down during milking when she feels like it. In this case she still milks out. We've milked cows laying down. Chelsea only had one half of her udder that functioned. When she layed on the correct side we just milked her as she lay there.

[Mulefoot]

willow_girl,

Are the surge milkers you have the hanging type or the floor variety? The ones we had (when my parents milked) were hanging ones that hung on a strap that went over the back of the cow. They are a bit nicer in that it is much more difficult for a cow to kick at it and spill the milk.

I have a friend that still uses the hanging buckets to milk his 50 cows twice a day. He is the only person I know, with the exception of Amish, that doesn't have a pipeline.

[willow_girl]

Thanks Mule. Yes, I have to keep the strap pretty much right over her pin bones to keep it in place.