I desperately need to find a milking machine that I can afford or afford to have my DH make up for me. I only have a few does to milk, but I have had surgery on my neck, with 2 levels fused. I am having problems again with my upper back and arms going numb and being weak. Milking by hand is going to be difficult this year. I'm doing physical therapy, but I'm probably headed back to the neurosurgeon again. :sniffle If anybody has plans on how to build a system or a way to find a used system I maybe can afford I would greatly appreciate you letting me know. thanks, Linda PS: I could also use a tip on finding a small trailer to transport goats with. Nothing fancy. Just a trailer or something that I can fit into a pick-up bed.
You can build a goat tote out of cattle panels and cable clamps. Just measure from wheel well to wheel well and back to front in your pickup and cut your cattle panels to fit with bolt cutters then spend a day clamping it all together. Buy a handful of locking nuts so they don't come loose. Cover it tightly with a heavy duty silver tarp and you are set to go. The goat totes you buy don't have a floor in them so if you had a wreck or something goats would be going everywhere. You can clamp a cattle panel floor in yours and it is a complete cage. For the gate, just use a piece of cattle panel for the end of it and don't clamp your cable clamps down all the way. Leave them a little loose so you can swing it open and shut. I close my gate with big snaps. I even put a divider gate in the middle of mine that you can swing shut and close with snaps to separate your animals if you need to. You can use it in the truck, you can use it as a holding cage in your yard, you can use it to stick a dog in if you need to pen one up for some reason. They are very handy to have around. I use mine to pick up calves at the auction barn in. Mine fits my long bed GMC truck and I've hauled 5 calves in it. They are light weight and easy to move. I can load mine and unload it by myself. I use tie downs to hold it in the truck. TIP: Use duct tape to wrap around the points where you cut your panel with the bolt cutters so it doesn't rip your tarp.
Here are a few pictures of my goat tote. http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d140/nitrors4/ Pictures of the milk machine. This thing is super easy to make. I did buy the bucket but everything else I put together. Well I might have gotten a little help from Vicki's husband, but we will keep that on the down low. :biggrin http://s34.photobucket.com/albums/d140/nitrors4/Goats/ I contacted Hamby and got a scratch and dent setup. Saved me almost $100.00.
you also can turn a air compressor into a pump that is what my DH did for me. Also I have an extra pump it is a Precision D150 with a GE 3/4 motor 110/220 V 1425 RPM we just put it on craigs list yesterday for $300. no guarantee as we have never used it yet. Bought as a spare but don't have the elec needed for it out in my milk house. I got my surge milker off of Ebay abt $70
Hey Sondra Tell me how to turn an air compressor into a pump? I have a Chris Martin pump that I love & would like another so I could take one to shows & leave one at home....but not able to reach Chris to order one
Thanks Janie! I got one on there....see if you think this'll work http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=200259303101
Got the stuff to build the chamber at HomeDepot excluding the pressure regulator and pressure vale, which I got from Hamby. The vacuum came from ToolTopia.com for $260 ish and it is a pretty big unit. Enough to milk 4 at a time with no problem. I just emailed Paul and told him what I needed and of course provided my credit card number. :rofl
I noticed yesterday that Harbor Freight has a vaccum pump for $99. Not sure of all the point pressure and all that jazz.. but I am sure it will milk a doe if it will vaccum out an air conditioner. Worth checking if you need one.
Rett....I just built a portable milking machine using this 2.5 cfpm freon pump. It is quiet, and light, and so far it is working fine for my application. But, I've noticed that even though it keeps up with my ND doe's just fine...it does fall back just a little bit on my standard size doe. I usually run mine vacuum pressure at about neg.12....and it will drop to about neg 11 on my big doe......which tells me that I'm maxing my pump out at this aditional flow rate. Although this works to my satisfaction here, I can only conclude that you need just a tad above 2.5 cfpm in order to run a one goat milker with a little room to spare. I assume that you would need to double that number in order to run a 2 goat milker. As a portable show milking machine, I think this pump would be fine enough to do the job needed.....but if your wanting a Cadilac....this would be more like driving there with a Volkswagon. Oh...and I caught mine on sale with H.F. for $79.00. H.F. prices jump up and down like a Yo-Yo....so sometimes it pays to wait a month and see if the price goes down. Whim
The pump that I have currently, the one I got from Chris Martin is wonderful- I use it on 2 at a time, has plenty of power, quiet, oilfree..... I found one on ebay that looks similar, but I don't know numbers to know if it's the same. Hopefully I'll have it soon. It was $34! If it doesn't work out I'll just put it back on ebay . I posted the link above, if anyone wnats to look to see if it looks like it'll work
I bought a pump from Grainger that was around $99 and they now have it back. It had no sucking power. It sucked enough for the inflations to move but wouldn't even stay suctioned to my hand. Don't highly recommend you wasting your time. I hate to be the bearer of bad news because I was trying to keep cost down also. But found one on ebay for not much more and with a lot more power! Wendy
