Calling all hand milkers!

[babsbag]

I was milking 4 or 5 goats each day and a friend called me in an emergency and asked me to go and milk her 7 Saanens as she was stuck out of town. No problem...HA HA on me. The goats were 2 gallon a day producers, over engorged, didn't know me, had HUGE teats and it took me 7 hours to milk those goats. My carpal tunnel came back with a vengeance and had surgery not long after that. The next year I started using a machine.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

took me 7 hours to milk those goats

Holy Cow! My hands hurt just thinking about that...

 

[NH homesteader]

I really hope that friend has been very nice to you ever since!

 

[WindyIndy]

Thank you all once again for great advice! 4 milk cows, and 7 hours of goat milking, WOW, that's a LOT! No wonder you guys were tired! Huge thumbs up to you guys

I know it varies from cow to co, but Dexters give around 1-2 1/2 gallons of milk a day, and I'm sure that's without the calf. My Daddy has some type of single vacuum pumped milker I think that he got a long time ago, maybe I can clean that up and use once in awhile when I'm more rushed or have sore arms/hands He's surprised I didn't plan on using that as my primary milker I'm also going to do my milking at night, that way I'm not rushed in the morning before work.

I want to try and find some recipes for essential oil cleaners too. I'm very natural and I read that on another blog, don't know why I didn't think of that sooner,lol Farm and fleet has the special rags dairy farmers use and also the paper like ones. Would those been any better then just a regular towel? And I saw teat dips, but assume those have more chemicals. Oh! And I was talking with one of my dairy farm friends, and they do a "after" dip, is that necessary for hand milking too?