When Jim Parkinson took over the partnership of the Rolling Pin Farm, Woodplumpton, Preston, Lancashire and his brothers went to pastures new, he made a decision not to employ any full time staff. With the herd at 120 cows and the routine tasks taking up most of the working day Jim set about making his work load a little easier. One of the first tasks was to replace the ageing 6:12 jar plant with something that fit his requirements but still be within his budget.

A Dairymaster 16:32 system with no automation was decided upon. "Rather than electronics my priority was in size and layout.  I wanted to milk through the back legs with the pit as short as possible. Feeding in the parlour is not necessary for us so we opted for the most basic parlour," says Mr Parkinson.

Still with no full time staff and now milking 190 cows Jim reflects on the few years in the Dairymaster parlour and comments "Milking is so easy, I can be milked within 2 hours with no fuss.  We have no issues with fidgety cows anymore. I have been amazed how the new parlour has transformed my work load. We have also recently installed Dairymaster automatic scrapers and now the daily tasks are quickly out of the way leaving a lot more time for me to concentrate on other jobs like herd management."

"The parlour has enabled me to increase the cow numbers.  With the old system we could not see how it was possible to milk any more cows.  Now, I am not afraid of further expansion, 300 cows is not out of the question with my current system."

"When the time comes I would certainly use Dairymaster again either with an upgrade or a new plant to help keep milking time to a minimum".