MsDeb's Journal - Lookin Out My Back Door

[frustratedearthmother]

Oh my - you had me laughing so hard I'm in tears! But, I am not laughing at you - I'm laughing with you! I think most of us who milk have had similar experiences. My first time milking with a first time milker was fairly similar...finally resorted to tying her feet to the milk stand! Now, she's my best milker, and to this day - two freshenings later - she will NOT move her feet on the stand, lol!

Congrats on your patience - I can't tell you the times I had to just turn and walk away so I wouldn't KILL ME SOME GOAT!

Good luck - it'll get better from here!

 

[MsDeb]

Congrats on your patience - I can't tell you the times I had to just turn and walk away so I wouldn't KILL ME SOME GOAT!
Good luck - it'll get better from here!

I have to admit that yesterday morning goat on the grill was sounding like a reasonable alternative.

 

[norseofcourse]

Woohoo!!!!! Glad you had such good success I really enjoyed milking last year once me and the sheep finally got the hang of it, and I'm really looking forward to it this year. It's so exciting, isn't it?

 

[MsDeb]

After yesterday morning success....absolutely no milk last night, no milk this morning. Not a drop. Bag is soft. It's like she'd been milked already. So incredibly disappointing and frustrating.

 

[Southern by choice]

 

[Hens and Roos]

Hang in there- she's probably trying to get the hang of things too!

 

[purplequeenvt]

Have you tried washing her udder with warm water? When I bring my cow up to milk, her udder is soft and flat, but as soon as I start washing, she lets her milk down and the udder gets full and tight.

I trained several sheep to milk last year. They kicked and flailed, but I eventually won. The main thing was the feed. I don't feed any grain while the animal is being milked (this goes for the cow, goats, or sheep). They get fed after milking as a reward. It's amazing how quickly they calmed down once they learned the routine.

I'd recommend getting her on the stand. Give her a handful of feed. Clean her udder. Give her some more feed. Milk a little bit. More feed. And so on. When you are done, give her another handful of feed and then take her off. Once she's off, give her the rest of her ration. She may start associating milking with good stuff instead of "torture".

 

[MsDeb]

I've had so much encouragement from here, FB sites and other friends. I didn't give up. Gave her bag a lovely long warm bath and massage yesterday evening and finally got about 3 3/4 cups. Decided to skip mornings and just do evening, which is what she was used to. Will see how it goes.
Meanwhile, she's a sweetie of a goat who is an equal opportunity hater of GPyrs and chihuahuas. LOL! The temp was right at 50 degrees yesterday so we spent the afternoon outside and let her out on a leash to look around her new home. She loved our not quite 2 year old granddaughter, Ella. Shaking and snorting, with hackles raised, she would get between us and whichever dog came close, determined to protect us. Because he had already received a couple of Alice head butts, Finn was concerned for Ella and thought he needed to guard her so he felt he needed to stay close. Rita, the chihuahua, just wanted close to me so I could protect her. Me, dogs and Alice just spent a lot of time standing in place trying to establish that no one was going to hurt anyone. Meanwhile Ella just hung out by the billy pen jabbering away to them, petting their noses and refilling their hay feeder with the hay they had pushed out on the ground. They LOVED the attention!
We are looking forward to the end of Alice's quarantine period just to see whether she or Tripod will establish dominance in the girls pen. They're both really strong willed. Should be interesting.

 

[Hens and Roos]

Glad you were able to get some milk

 

[MsDeb]

Last spring, when we moved out of our 5th wheel and into this place we had very little furniture. Basically just what we'd had in our camper. Our living room furniture consisted of our reclining love seat and a couple of chairs. When our kids moved in with us in November we brought our love seat into our bedroom so we would have an area with some privacy. Their couch went into the living room. They moved out this last week. David likes having the love seat in the bedroom and wants to keep it there. So in our living room we have two chairs. (Upholstered "waiting room" type chairs. Nothing special.) We set up our card table the other night so we could eat in the living room and watch TV. Also, our bed sucks. We need living room furniture and we need a bed. Oh, and I haven't had a cut and color in so long my roots are about half my hair length. So how did I spend money last week? On a goat of course.
So here we are with our two chairs...... our five goats..... and my really bad hair.....

Priorities?