Check that dipstick. Or more likely, check that milk house floor and make adjustments to the pedestals on the bulk tank to ensure that milk weights are accurate.
That's one message gleaned from an ongoing program by the Northeast Federal Milk Marketing Order. Last year, its milk tank calibration program evaluated 269 bulk tanks and found 27 - 10 percent of all tanks evaluated - were out of tolerance and needed to be recalibrated.
Of the tanks needing recalibration, the 27 were almost equally split between cooling units that were overestimating milk and under measuring milk.
In those cases, tanks were adjusted and then recalibrated precisely measuring liquid levels at four to five different levels. In severe cases, liquid can be measured at each calibration mark in the dipstick.
The numbers of tanks out of sync was higher in 2015 than the previous year's 5.5 percent of the 290 sampled. In both years, tanks under 1,500 gallons of milk, or those holding 13,000 pounds of milk, involved the majority of the recalibrations.
(c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2016
March 14, 2016
