Drying the teats with individual paper or cloth towels is the most important step. Drying does more to lower SCC and reduce clinical mastitis than the other steps. The teat and teat end must be wiped clean and dry. The drying towel removes the most bacteria from the teat. Once the teat has been dried, do not touch it again with your hands.
Timing is very important to milking speed and milk yield.
Recent research done in Denmark has shown the importance of timing. Ideally, the units should be attached to the teats 45 to 90 seconds after stripping. If the timing is delayed, there will be longer milking times and less milk harvested. Many farms have inadequate timing which creates over milking before milk let down. Often times parlor farms set their automation on manual until let down occurs.