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First Milk member Alistair Kerr, milks 140 cows at Camsiscan farm, Craigie, Kilmarnock. He had been using a local cluster exchange scheme for six years and moved to First Milk’s Cluster Exchange Scheme a year ago. He is full of praise for the benefits of the scheme.

The beauty of it is you get new liners and cluster when you need them. You don’t need to think about when to change them and being so quick and easy it takes the pressure off,” he said. “The parlour is the most important piece of equipment on the farm and the liner is fundamental to it. Changing them regularly and fitting the best liners makes sense.”

Alistair estimates that it would take him at least two hours to manually change the liners on his 12:12 parlour but it takes just 30 minutes to change the supplied units. His washing of the shells would also not be as comprehensive as they are through the exchange scheme and although he has had no cause to use the liner scoring service, he is pleased there’s the added safeguard.

Before I went on the scheme the cluster units were pretty dilapidated. Now everything is in tip-top condition and it will undoubtedly have an effect on milk quality. If anything goes wrong I also know I can replace it free of charge. The triangular liner and shell design significantly reduces liner slip and liners cannot ‘twist ‘ in the shell as they can on conventional liner/ shell combinations. The Cluster Exchange Scheme is excellent and I would recommend it to anyone.”