Milking equipment

Milking and milk handling — a 25-litre single-cow milking machine, aluminium milk cans from 10 to 50 litres, and an electric cream separator.

A milking machine is bought for consistency as much as for speed: hands vary, vacuum does not, and milking a cow out completely is what keeps yield up and mastitis down. Aluminium cans are what collection points accept and what survives daily scalding.

The cream separator is a different argument — it changes what you sell. Cream is worth several times the same volume of raw milk and the skim still feeds calves, so it earns on the spread rather than on volume.