Cornell study of CoPulsation™ Milking System
Evaluation of an Experimental Milking Pulsation System
for Effects on Milking and Udder Health
Cornell University states that a new CMS (CoPulsation™ Milking System) was used. This is false, the system was a used system purchased from a dairy farmer. It had several thousand prior use hours and was beyond the required maintenance interval which CU failed to perform. The system was improperly installed in a pipeline style facility as the product they purchased was designed specifically for a parlor style facility. This fact was later discussed with Dave Wilson, an author of the study, and Wilson stated that Cornell made "ingenious modifications" to the system to get it to work in the improperly installed configuration.
The initial cow distribution is claimed to be random yet the data in the study (table 2) shows that the initial distribution of cows was such that there were 15 cases of mastitis in the CMS group and only 9 in the conventional group. There were also 5 cases of Staph aureus in the CMS group and none (0) in the conventional group. The study also states 30 cows were selected from the university herd that were most likely to survive the one year duration of the study. The dairy industry widely accepts the fact that Staph aureus infected cows should be culled from a herd whenever practical and therefore those are not cows that would be expected to survive for another year.
The primary result of the study is the fact that the CMS virtually eliminates new cases of Staph aureus as noted in table 2 with a reduction of nearly 16 to 1 (.31/.02) which is noted by the researchers as "significantly different". It should be further noted that no other product on the market offers so significant of a reduction. The research was funded by Cornell University Alumni as noted in the acknowledgments section.