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US 2003/0192479 A1Published application
Replaceable liner and teat cup shell for a teat cup assembly and method
AssigneeBECO Dairy Automation Inc.
InventorStan A. Brown
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AssigneeBECO Dairy Automation Inc.
InventorStan A. Brown
Estimating the term…
A liner for use with a teat cup having a rigid hollow shell having a central aperture is shown. The liner comprises a teat chamber having an opening which extends axially therethrough and terminates in a distal end and which has an axial length greater in length than a length of a teat terminating in a distal tip which is to be inserted into the teat chamber. The distal tip of a teat is positioned in a spaced relationship from the distal end of the teat chamber. The liner includes a transition chamber having an axially extending reducing inner passageway which has an inlet contiguous to and communicating with the opening in the distal end. The inner passageway inlet has a dimension substantially equal to the opening and decreases in dimension to an outlet having an outlet dimension less that the inlet dimension. The transition chamber defines thereon a circumferentially extending cuff member configured to be passed through a central aperture in a shell and to them surround and urge the cuff member against a shell. A milk tube, having a receiving end and a discharge end, communicates with the outlet of the transition chamber. The discharge end is configured to be operatively connected to a milk claw.
A liner for use with a teat cup having a rigid hollow shell with a central aperture formed at one end thereof, said liner comprising
7 The liner of claim 1 wherein said teat chamber, said transition chamber and said milk tube is a one piece unit.
The liner of claim 7 wherein said teat chamber, said transition chamber and said milk tube having a plurality of axially spaced, circumferentially extending grooves is a one piece unit.
The liner of claim 7 wherein said liner is formed of a material selected from the group consisting of a flexible material, an elastomeric material, a synthetic composition material and a natural rubber material.
A teat cup shell comprising
In combination,
A method of inserting a liner into a teat cup shell comprising the steps of
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
Backward citations are indexed for grants only.
Term end not estimated
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention will become more fully understood from the following detailed description of a preferred but non limiting embodiment thereof, described in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
FIG. 1 is a pictorial representation of a teat cup assembly, partially in cross-section, operatively attached to a teat of a cow and to the inlet of a milk claw using the teaching of the present invention and wherein the “dashed” line represents the location of a distal tip of a teat in the teat chamber spaced from the distal end of the teat chamber and the “dotted” line represents the typical position of the distal tip of a teat in a prior art tubular liner;
FIG. 2 is a top, front and left side perspective view of an assembled teat cup shell and replaceable liner;
Typically, a milking machine includes four (4) teat cup assemblies which are attached to the teats located on an animal to be milked, such as for example, a modern dairy cow. Modern dairy cows produce higher milk flows which tend to cause a wider range of vacuum fluctuations due to the higher milk flow rates occluding the milk tube, outlet from the milk claw, milk liner and pipeline to the milk collecting system. U.S. Pat. No. 5,896,827, the inventor which is the inventor of the present invention, teaches that a substantially stable continuous vacuum level can be obtained through a milk claw and milk hose by selecting a cross-sectional area to be in the range of a minimum cross-sectional area for maintaining, at all milk flow rates, a substantially uniform laminar flow of milk therethrough and for concurrently providing a stable continuous vacuum in a vacuum chamber between the laminar flow of milk and the interior sidewalls of the milk flow outlet.
When a cow enters a milking barn or milking parlor, such as a herring bone style milking parlor, and the milking machine is connected to the animal's body, the body starts to react in preparation for “letting down” of the animal's, e.g. cow's, milk. A natural process takes place wherein the animal produces within the animal's blood stream a chemical called “oxitosin”. This chemical works its way down into the udder causing the ovili cells to contract. In essence, contraction of the ovili cells causes a squeezing effect to help push out, expel or withdraw the animal's milk. The period of time the animal produces this oxitosin is limited, and recent research suggests somewhere between 4 and 6 minutes on average.
The milking system using the teachings of this invention not only recognizes the importance of lactation cycles, but is able to milk the cow faster at a substantially stable continuous vacuum level. Faster milking of an animal allows all the milk to be extracted within the oxitosin production period and most importantly when the animal is willing to give milk production.