Monitoring the inner surface of teat cup liners made from different materials

Abstract

The modern milking equipment consists of several rubber parts. Among these rubber parts, the most important is a teat cup liner, which provides direct contact force to teat tissue. Properties of teat cup liners directly affect the technical and technological process of milking, udder health condition and quality of obtained milk. The aim of the study is to specify the inner surface roughness of cup liners made from different materials. Roughness was measured using Surftest-301 Mitutoyo connected to a printer. Teat cup liners were monitored and evaluated at three different locations of the inner surface, every three months in primary production. The obtained results showed linear regression between the inner surface roughness of teat cup liners and exposure time. Significant differences of selected indicators of silicone liners were observed with P-value (0.029) < alpha (0.05). The model equation shows that if the value of cup liners exposure time increases by one month, inner surface roughness is likely to increase by approximately 0.039 μm.

Keywords

• teat cup liner
• exposure
• roughness