Animal husbandry – Milkers – Claw
Patent
1996-07-16
1998-11-03
Burr, Edgar S.
Animal husbandry
Milkers
Claw
119 1454, A01J 500
Patent
active
058293817
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to the field of measuring the complex impedance, such as the electrical conductance and/or the capacitance, of milk, for example for detecting mastitis in dairy animals. In that connection, it is known to use, in a milking installation, a detection device which has a sample chamber in which a milk sample can be received. The sample chamber is generally so designed that the milk sample received therein stays relatively stationary for some time so that the conductance of the milk can be measured by means of the sensors.
EP-B-137 367 discloses some embodiments of such a sample chamber. Thus, the short milk hose between the teat cup and the pulsator may be provided, over a section of its length, with an insulated channel which opens out again via a small opening into the main channel. Two electrodes are mounted in the insulated channel.
As an alternative, it is also known to constrict the milk hose locally so that a stagnation point occurs in the milk flow. Mounted just in front of the constriction are the electrodes which measure the conductance of the relatively slowly flowing milk.
It is furthermore known, to provide, in the pulsator itself, sample chambers in which the electrodes are sited.
In all these known detection devices, however, the problem arises that the measurements of the impedance obtained are inaccurate. The consequence of this is that said measurements are not reliable enough and cannot provide any clear information relating to the presence or absence of mastitis. The object of the invention is therefore to provide such a device which will in fact yield reliable results.
That object is achieved in that the sensors are mounted in the sample chamber at an essentially mutually equal height level. At the same time, the reliability can be increased still further if the sensors have an elongated shape and are mutually parallel. If the elongated sensors are, in addition, transverse to the milk surface within a certain angular range, for example between 0.degree. and .+-.45.degree., fluctuations in the flow rate of the milk sample do not have any influence on the measuring accuracy. An elongated shape must be understood as meaning any shape in which a clear longitudinal direction can be distinguished, such as a rectangle, oval, exclamation mark etc.
Such fluctuations in the flow rate of the milk sample in the sample chamber are the consequence of the pulsating nature of the milk flow and the varying rate at which the animals deliver their milk; with such an arrangement and design of the sensors, however, they have hardly any influence on the measurements, as a result of which a very constant, reliable picture is obtained.
As already discussed above, such a sample chamber ban be received in the short milk hose itself. Preferably, however, such a measuring device is provided in a pulsator for a milking installation. The pulsator disclosed in EP-B-137 367 contains, in a known manner, a collecting space having a lid which has feed openings which may each be connected to a teat cup of the milking device, in which collecting space sample chambers are separated off for receiving a milk sample originating from an associated teat cup, which sample chambers are each provided with sensors for measuring the complex impedance of the milk.
In such a pulsator, an important improvement in the measurements can be obtained if the sensors are situated next to one another when viewed in the circumferential direction of the collecting space. In this arrangement, the sensors are situated at equal levels when viewed in the vertical direction. In this case, too, the influence of fluctuations in the milk supply can largely be eliminated if the sensors have an elongated shape, and the longitudinal direction of the sensors is directed perpendicularly to the circumferential direction of the collecting space.
Each sample chamber can be designed so that it is bounded, on the one hand, by a chamber wall extending into the collecting space from the circumferential wall and, on the other hand, by the adjacent
REFERENCES:
patent: 4403568 (1983-09-01), Fukuhara et al.
patent: 5590622 (1997-01-01), Wilson et al.
patent: 5651329 (1997-07-01), Van Den Burg et al.
Nijkamp Jan Marinus
Posthuma Berend Andries
Burr Edgar S.
Gascoigne-Melotte B.V.
Ghatt Dave A.
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