Before I begin, if you missed my last blog post on how we came to be in this situation, you can find that post here: A Sad Day
The last few days I have been teaching my little girl Emerald how to be milked.
This is the first time I've ever taught a goat how to get the job done. With Sadie, she was a first time mom when I got her but she had already been since I got her from a farm with plenty of other goats.
So not only had I not taught a goat how to do this before, I was doing this with a younger first time mom who had lost her baby and who also happens to not like people much.
She's very skiddish and hard to catch.
Day 1: She had no idea what she was doing. I can imagine she was all sorts of messed up being milked for the first time with no baby by essentially the whole family (kids and husband were included) that she really doesn't care for except to get treats from. She didn't really know what to do and fought with all her little heart not to be dragged to the shed. Had to tie her legs with rops to keep her from kicking. Didn't really want to touch her chop. Understandable as this was a new experience after another new experience (one that didn't end well). Her teets were full but they weren't as big so I could only use 1 finger and thumb to try to milk her. Either way it was a successful attempt.
Day 2: Practically the same as day 1. Kids helped by holding the bucket, goat had to essentially be dragged to the shed for milking on the milking stand HOWEVER she was a little more open to getting on the stand and with a little coaxing poked her head through the slot for the chop. She didn't eat it during milking but she stood still this time. Still had to be tied up to prevent kicking but it wasn't as bad.
Day 3-4: Less dragging to the shed. She comes for the most part willingly and even leaned into being milked. She was willing to hop onto the stand and knows where the chop is. Milking has increased. Gone from a cup to about a cup and half. I'm getting the hand of this so it's becoming quicker and easier. Didn't have to tie her up but just held her one leg while working with the other hand to let her know now is not the time to kick.
Day 5-6(this morning): She's becoming confident in her milking routine. While it's a bit of a pain in the butt to get her out of the shed (she will forever be difficult with separating her from her herd but once she is she's easy to deal with) she comes right to the shed, pops right on that stand and sticks her head through waiting for her chop. She now eats her chop the whole time she's milked and we get it done pretty quickly.
She's even getting a little bit confident kicky now to say when she's done even though I'm not yet. For the most part I don't have to hold her which is nice. I'd rather not have to do that cause it's uncomfortable for the goat having to hold so tight.
It has been a success so far and man do I love this little goat. She's such a character.
Pictures below are from last nights milking.
BRO TIP: If your goat is freaking out, stroke the udder. There's that line on the back of the udder that naturally separates it into two, give that a smooth and firm (but not too firm) stroke from the top to the bottom.
It releases hormones to make your goatie relax. May not work on all the goaties but it sure worked on mine.
Learned that from a friend who was working at a dairy barn up until this past year as they used that technique on cattle that wouldn't settle down for milking.