68 Report of Department of Animal Industry of the 



Combining these averages on the basis of a fifteen-cow dairy 

 and assuming that these cows were milked by one man using two 

 milking machines the computation would be as follows: 



Preparing the machines night and morning. 

 Milking 30 cows (15 night and morning) , . . 

 Rinsing machines at barn night and morning 

 Cleaning teat cups and tubes (1/7 of 18.3) . 

 Washing remaining parts of machines 



Total time required for milking 30 cows 

 Average time required to milk one cow. . . . 



6 . 72 minutes 



88.20 minutes 



15.36 minutes 



2.61 minutes 



8.13 minutes 



121.02 minutes 

 4 . 034 minutes 



These computations give an average of almost exactly four min- 

 utes per cow or a rate of fifteen cows per hour. Considering that 

 in these experiments the yield of each cow was weighed and 

 recorded separately and that one man did all of the work con- 

 nected with the care of the milk and the milking machines, it 

 would seem that under commercial conditions these figures would 

 be easily equalled or excelled. It should also be noted that these 

 figures are on the basis of fifteen cows which is probably as small 

 a number as will be found profitable in connection with present 

 machine milking. In this case approximately one-third of the 

 total time was spent in other operations than in actually milking 

 cows. As the number of cows increased, this extra consumption 

 of time would become relatively less and the average time re- 

 quired per cow would decrease accordingly. 



The average time taken by our hand milkers for milking, re- 

 cording the weight and pouring the milk upon the cooler has been 

 seven minutes per cow. 



The question of the length of time required to milk cows by 

 machines has been discussed by a number of experimenters. 

 Lane^ found that one man milking four cows with one machine 

 averaged 3.32 minutes per cow for the actual milking time. One 

 man milking ten cows with five machines completed the milking 

 process in an average time of 1.85 minutes per cow. 



1 See footnote 2, p. 60. 



