Simple PULSE Professional Home Milking System

I wanted to tell you about a wonderfully, locally made milking system.

Yes, we are no longer milking by hand.

The week Michael was in St. Louis it became obvious that doing all the morning chores including milking two goats all before waking up the boys, making them breakfast and then beginning school wasn’t going to work.

Our first time freshener, Brown Sugar, is difficult to milk. Very normal at this point but it would take me a half hour to milk her. She doesn’t let her milk down, probably because her HUGE more than three month old “babies” are still enjoying her milk, so I have to keep going until I “get it all”.

Now we have added Halle Berry. She is so easy to milk. Really a dream on the stanchion. She also produces a lot but can be milked much more quickly. On top of that we will soon be milking twice a day (keep in mind that my husband does have to travel with his job).

So we decided to start using the “Simple PULSE Professional Home Milking System. Wow, what a difference. So easy. So quick. Each goat takes just about five minutes to milk. WOOOOHOOO!

Here is what the set up looks like.

It consists of a vacuum pump which is a separate unit that you turn on and it creates negative pressure (vacuum) in the blue tank which houses the pulsator, vacuum regulator and the pressure gauge. Really, not a mechanical person here trying to explain how this works. I’m amazed that people are able to invent things like this.

The system is a closed system which means the milk is never exposed to elements such as dirt, animal hair, etc. That is really important because most people who milk goats keep the milk raw. We do not pasteurize our milk.

The hoses connect from the tank and the milking line directly to the lid on your gallon size glass jar. On the opposite end of that milking line are the inflations that attach to the teats. When you get them on you can see the system inside the inflation pulsing off and on and with each pulse it applies pressure to that teat just like a hand would do.

The goats  don’t fuss  when the machine is milking them like they might when human hands are milking them.

When we are done with one goat we simply remove the inflations and drain the line (hold it up so gravity lets all the milk flow into the jar). We do what needs to be done with the goat and then bring in the next one and start all over again.

The cleaning process is super easy. We have one bucket with hot bleach water and one bucket with warm soapy water. We switch the tubes from the jar with milk in it to the gallon jar that is empty. While the machine is still running we put the inflation end of the hose system into the soapy water. Alternating between in the water and out of the water allowing that soapy water to run through the hose system into the glass jar. I also use the soapy water to rinse off the lower section of hose (near the inflations). After the soapy water we do the exact same procedures with the bleach water.

We hang the system and let it dry until it’s next use.

I am working towards an ADGA Dairy Herd Improvement program called DHIA milk test. (Once I figure it out I’ll do a post on it.) I need to keep a weight record of the milk each goat gives in a 24 hour period so we milk each goat into their own jar. We don’t need the gallon size jar for two goats. You can purchase lids that will fit wide mouth canning jars. Milk test will be made much simpler as each goat can be milked into their own jar for weighing and sampling.

Some people have other goats that produce a ton more milk than our little Nigerian Dwarf Goats. For those people you can connect the two gallon jars so that you can actually fill two gallons before needing to switch out the jars. They also have a six-gallon pail available that can be paired with the system.

So what do I like best about this machine?

1) Fast from start to finish.
2) If you have “difficult” goats this is much less frustrating
3) Much faster learning curve. Our boys will be taught how to use the machine
4) The way they designed the system  protects the pump should you accidentally over-fill a jar and water/milk gets into the tank.
5) While the goats are being milked we are free to do other chores. True multi-tasking.

Here is a link if you want to learn more about the Simple Pulse. I am not paid for what I’ve written here today. I just love the system and wanted to tell you about it.

Have a great day,
Karen