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Milking machine: make your own goat (or cow).

Article Excerpt
Tired of milking 10 does by hand, we bartered for an old 1950s milk machine and this was the first time we would use it.

Being "off-grid" I had an old generator out back to power it. As I fired it up blue smoke quickly hung in the air like a cloud and the roar of that worn out thing was deafening. Next we plugged in the old milk machine not really knowing what to expect but it started working immediately. S-N-O-R-T--HAA! S-N-O-R-T--HAAA! Karen and I looked at each other. I yelled out "it sounds like it's in heat!" Matched with the roar of that old generator the pair sure was noisy. Karen brought the first goat, Blackie, around to get started. Blackie was our most senior high producing milker and we thought she would be a good choice to see how well this old machine would work. She very hesitantly walked past our smoke spewing, snorting contraption. The combination of panic and confusion was obvious in her demeanor.

Concerned that she would bolt, Karen gripped her collar tight as she coerced her onto the stanchion. Blackie never took her eyes off of that milk machine. I think she thought it was alive. As Karen unracked the claw and moved toward Blackie's teats that goat quickly figured out what was about to happen as her eyes got really wide and she bleated loudly as in "There is no way you're gonna hook that thing up to me!" And it wasn't easy and it took awhile, but she eventually gave in. As Karen and I yelled to each other just to have a conversation, I knew this wasn't going to work out for us, but the simplicity of that old milk machine really got me thinking.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In the late 1970s I was a herdsman at an 800-cow dairy so I am familiar with the milking procedure and the equipment needed. So that night I did some more thinking and scribbling in my notebook and thought I had a homemade milk machine just about figured out. I knew that the vacuum to run the machine could easily be supplied by an idling automobile but I couldn't figure out how to build a simple pulsator. The pulsator is the device that controls the squeezing and relaxing of the teat as it is being milked (a very important and necessary function).

Ultimately it was the pulsater and its mount that cost the most. For the pot I used an old pressure cooker pot purchased at a second-hand store. The teat cups were 1 1/4 inch PVC pipe but we had to buy the liners. These were inexpensive along with the bulk of the other parts. The construction of it was fairly simple; you can build your own.

Included below are complete directions that show exactly how to build what we call the "Poor Boy Goat Milking Machine." After six years we are still using the original prototype machine and now we use a quietly idling truck to run it, with stereo music to boot! We have had absolutely no problems with the machine, the truck, or any of our goats. It is quick, quiet, easy and a proven design. An idling auto requires very little gas per goat even at today's prices. As soon as the goats hear the truck start, they are ready to go. On a scale of 1-10 in difficulty to build, this was probably a 4. Any handy type person would have no problems building a "Poor Boy Goat Milking Machine." We actually sold these through NASCO for a year but sales were slow. We had rave reviews with no complaints so we thought that they would let us go another year hoping it would catch on, but they didn't. We sell occasionally on eBay now. I think most folks are leery about using their car for this but I can assure anyone that no...

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