Alternatives to expensive milking supplies

[madcow]

Madcow, I've duplicated your set-up, thanks to your excellent description and pictures and am wondering if you could tell me your leaning regimen for this specific setup. Thank you so much!

Usually, I will take the lid off the jar and set the jar (covered) of milk in the freezer to cool down quickly. I then disconnect the syringe from the tube, then the milk tube from the connectors on the lid, and also disconnect the pump/air tubing from the lid. I usually don't disconnect the pump/air tube from the pump. I will wash that tube once a week, because it hasn't had any milk go through it. Of course, if it does manage to get milk into it somehow, I do wash it that day after disconnecting from the pump. I then rinse everything in cool water to get any leftover milk out of the parts. At this point you can either wash everything or just put all the parts (not the pump and its tubing) into hot, soapy water, with 1 cup of white vinegar added, to clean later. When you are ready to clean just use a long brush made for cleaning straws (like from those resuable, plastic drinking cups that are so popular now) and swab from both ends of the milk tube. I then will use a bottle brush to clean the syringe. The connectors on the lid need to be cleaned with the straw brush and both sides of the lid washed. Rinse everything and drip dry. I use vinegar in the water 6 days a week and bleach 1 day a week to clean the milking equipment. This is the method that large dairies use to clean their equipment. Vinegar (acidic) 6 days a week and bleach (alkaline) 1 day a week and this will get all the proteins and fat off the milking equipment. Hope that is clear as mud!

 

[kristenm1975]

Thanks madcow! That was super helpful. Sounds like its pretty intensive but can be shortened in the morning and completed at night, which is kind of what I was hoping, since I usually leave the house by 6:30 and prefer all morning routines to be only as complicated as they have to be.