Ruakura Milking Plant

Doug Phillips is known in the dairy industry as the inventor of the Ruakura Milking Plant, a machine that was known to be more efficient and easier on the cows udders and teats thus less likely to spread mastitis. Doug worked at the Ruakura Research Centre.

The Ruakura Milker was popular in the 1960's and 1970's milking 8-10 cows at a time so now that herds are much larger and the farmer needs to milk 30-40 cows at a time, the Ruakura Milking Plant is no longer used. It was hard for the museum to find a complete machine since they were no longer in use but after placing an ad in the Straight Furrow magazine, we started getting a few calls from people that had some bits of the old Ruakura Milking Machine.

It took visits to 4 farms to get enough pieces to make a complete milking machine but now we have the famous Ruakura Milking Plant that is being cleaned up painted and will soon be installed by Jack Partridge a retired milking plant installer who installed dozens of Ruakura Milking Plants on farms around the Waikato.

This machine will be on display in the machine room of the Dairy Museum here at Mystery Creek along with other milking plants from different periods in New Zealands rich dairying history.