The paper provides a rationale for the relevance of automation in machine milking. It deals with the design and control algorithm of a mobile manipulator adapted for milking machines. The manipulator allows for a change in the milking routine, thus making it possible to regulate the amount of vacuum in a tea cup, subject to a current flow rate separately for each pair of mammary glands. The paper presents the results of theoretical and experimental studies that indicate the way vacuum variations depend on the diameter of a metering orifice of a non-return valve, and how vacuum fluctuations in a teatcup chamber, as a spring-loaded valve opens, depend on the number of coils on a spring and its diameter. The results of a production check on a mobile milking manipulator are presented in the paper.