ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the range of milking performance of liners of different designs. These are compared with the range arising from altering of other milking machine factors. The most important milking characteristics are machine yield, strip yield; time to stripping, liner slips, and cluster fall-off. The experimental methods in detail and only the main details are repeated for clarity. The most important milking characteristics are machine yield, strip yield; time to stripping, liner slips, and cluster fall-off. Machine milking time is usually of less importance since its effect on herd milking rate is largely obviated by varying the number of clusters used. The stage of lactation effect is largely due to differences in milk yield. In general, milking characteristics are more critically related to liner design than cluster weight. Comparisons of several liner designs showed that the materials from which liners were made had similar effects on milking characteristics.
