Adventures in Milking

Ok. So, as far as my milking experience thus far, I have squeezed one squirt out of one of Tierra’s teats a couple months ago when I first went out to Casey’s farm to see if I wanted to buy Tierra, and one other experience milking her infront of half a dozen people the day she arrived, with Casey looking over my shoulder to see that I was doing it correctly. Now the true test comes… time to do it on our own. I was lucky that Tierra arrived on a Saturday, so I had the Saturday night, and both Sunday milkings with Dustin to help me. The first real milking all on our own Saturday night was a bit hairy, as Tierra was not thrilled at having a new person (especially one who obviously did not know what she was doing down there!) groping her in the dark. She’d stomp and swat at me with her back hoof, but I was tenacious and clung to that teat till I got the last drop out. Or so I thought. You see, goats are infamous for their conscious control of their milk letdown. You milk a little, massage the udder a little, and in theory, she should let down some more milk. This was not what Tierra had in mind. As soon as I’d let her off the stanchion I would look and her teats would plump back up full of milk. Oh, well. She can keep her stupid milk.

Things got markedly more interesting the next evening milking after Lucy and Louie had arrived. You see, the milking stanchion is in the goat pen where Lucy and Louie can be in the middle of things. I had not anticipated their interest in the process. To further complicate matters, I had not devised a lock for the stanchion head gate yet, so Dustin had to stand there and hold it closed so Tierra would not escape (she was still not thrilled about my overtures to milk her). So. I’m trying to milk a cranky goat, all the while trying to finish up before she finishes eating her grain ration or all hell will really break loose, and Dustin is holding the headgate closed with all his might, as Tierra is trying to get away the whole time. Now, remember, this is happening at 8 o’clock at night and it is pitch dark out here in the country, and we are doing this by flashlight. I can hear Lucy and Louie over in the corner behind Dustin, and it was particularly chaotic over there. Tierra was acting particularly agitated and stomping and trying to break the stanchion. Dustin is constantly moving about and muttering to himself, I’ve got my face buried in goat flank trying to get some milk out of these blasted things all the while avoiding flying goat hoof, and all I hear is Dustin saying, “They are being so bad! They are being SO bad! Oh my word they are being SO BAD!” I was too harried at the time to ask what on earth he was talking about, but he told me later that Lucy and Louie were pushing him from behind and attempting to trample him to get to Tierra’s bowl of grain. Tierra, who has been milked a few years now, was justifiably outraged that ANYBODY would try to take her grain while she was being milked. In her view, that’s the deal. You give me grain, I let you do what you want. Nowhere in there did she allow for other goats to raid her coveted grain bowl. So she was trying to head butt them the whole time, which just made the whole thing extra fun.

Notice how Tierra keeps herself separate from them. Can’t say I blame her.

Dustin and Lucy made up pretty quickly.








At the end of the day, it really is worth it to have fresh goat milk finding its way to your table. It’s starting to pile up in my fridge. I’ve started throwing the extras into the freezer. Perhaps time to try making some cheese!