Quarter Individual Milking in Conventional Milking Parlours Sandra Rose-Meierhöfer 1 , Hülya Öz 2 , Ulrich Ströbel 1 1 Leibniz-Institute for Agricultural Engineering Potsdam-Bornim, Germany 2 Ege University, Ege Vocational Training School, Izmir- Turkey In this study, a new quarter individual milking system called Multilactor® (MULTI) was compared with a conventional milking system (CON). The target of the developments in the field of milking technique is to obtain the whole milk from the teat of the animal in the shortest possible time without causing any detrimental effect on udder health. The most direct measure of the milking system effect on the cow is the vacuum in the claw of the milking unit (Reinemann et al. 2007). The quarter individual milking is still introduced by automatic milking systems (AMS). There are many studies about the effects of AMS milking on udder health conducted by different scientists. Rasmussen et al. (2003) detected an increase in bulk-milk somatic cell count (SCC) after using of AMS. This shows the necessity of having an additional method to detect clinically infected cows. So measuring of milk composition especially SCC per each udder quarter is important (Berglund et al. 2007). To satisfy these needs, a new milking system called “Multilactor®” was developed. Multilactor® uses the single tube system like AMS. But these systems include periodic air inlet in pulse chamber (like BioMilker®) and can be adapted for the use at milking parlour. It has a sequential pulsation and cluster is adapted by milking person (Oz et al. 2008). The objective of this study was to determine the effects of milk flow on average liner vacuum at the teat end during b- and d-phase in both, conventional and quarter individual milking systems by using wet-test method in practical conditions as defined in (ISO 6690, 2007). Material and Method Two different types of milking systems, a conventional (CON) and a quarter individual milking unit (MULTI) were tested during the experiments on two similar tandem milking parlours. Both milking parlours are equipped with milk meters and with low level vacuum line. The conventional milking cluster manufactured by GEA Bönen with a claw volume of 300 ccm (CON) was used as a reference cluster. Alternative pulsation at a rate of 60 cycles/min and the ratio of 60:40 was applied. The system working vacuum level was 40 kPa (11.81 inches of Mercury). As a second system, MultiLactor® (Siliconform GmbH Türkheim, Germany) (MULTI) was used. The length of the quarter individual long milk tubes and the inside diameter are 2100 mm (82.68 inches) and 10 mm (0.39 inches), respectively. The pulsation rate and the ratios were set to the same levels as in CON. The system working vacuum level was set to 38 kPa (11.22 inches of Mercury). The system works with sequential pulsation. Vacuum measurements were conducted by using wet test (ISO 6690, 2007). During the experiments ISO artificial teats were used (ISO 6690, 2007). Water was used to simulate the effects of milk flow ranged between 0-6 l/min (1.59 Gallons/min). The vacuum recording device named "Bovi Press", A & R Trading GmbH was used at the sampling rate higher than 300 Hz and with a measuring accuracy of ± 0,1 kPa. The vacuum was recorded for 21 pulse cycles. It was measured in the liner (ISO-teat end), in the pulse chamber and in the main vacuum line, simultaneously. From the data recorded, the mean vacuum in b-phase and in d-phase, and the percent share of the phases of the pulsation cycles were calculated. The First North American Conference on Precision Dairy Management 2010