Teat cup milking inflation or liner

Claim 1

A teat cup milking inflation of the kind referred to and comprising a resilient upright substantially cylindrical tubular body part arranged to be located and contained within an upright rigid substantially cylindrical tubular shell with upper and lower portions of the body part being respectively sealably engageable with upper and lower parts of the shell, and annular space being formed about the contained body part and to which a pulsating vacuum or pressure can be applied; said contained body part being arranged for location about an animal's teat and having an open upper collar part defining the inflation mouth for teat entry, and the lower portion of the body being provided with a milk outlet connectable to a vacuum milk line; said tubular body part being characterized by having a generally tapering formation along at least a major part of its length and by the provision on its inner wall surface of a plurality of annular ripples or undulations at intervals therealong with the minimum bore diameters of the ripples or undulations progressively decreasing from the uppermost ones to the lowermost of said ripples or undulations; the lowermost ripple or undulating terminating in close proximity to the milk outlet at the lower end of the contained body part with the lower trough of said lowermost ripple merging into a small chamber above said outlet and below the lower end of the animal's teat when located within the contained body part, and said milk outlet being of substantially lesser diameter than the lowermost ripple or undulation.