Abstract: An apparatus to monitor temperature of the milk taken from a cow. The apparatus comprises a housing that is mounted to a short tube of a milking claw. It has a tilt switch that causes the device to be operational when in an upright position, and non-operational when the short milk tube is depending downwardly in a non-use condition. The heat transfer coefficients of the apparatus are arranged so as to minimize potential errors in temperature measurement due to wide variation in ambient temperature in a milk parlor.