Today we milked Toffee for the first time. The first time in her 4 years and second freshening she has ever been milked.
And here I was expecting a pail full of frothy, creamy goodness from our just-freshened Nubian doe, Toffee. Who, just 4 days ago, had the most ADORABLE little doeling ever.
Anyways, back to expectations. Ok, actually she did EXACTLY as I expected. We haven’t yet started separating her and Mocha at night due to the freezing temps. So I knew we wouldn’t have a lot of milk to begin with since little Mocha has free access, and we milked towards the evening hours. Toffee fidgeted on the lead. That’s right. Lead rope. Somebody, ahem, dear husband, has yet to build me a milking stanchion.
She didn’t like me touching her udders or teats. At all. So instead of milking with two hands, like most normal people, I proceeded to hold her leg still and on the ground so she wouldn’t knock over or step in the milk pail. Again. AND she has pretty small teats. I’m not sure if this is how they will stay as she just gave birth and has never been milked before (we actually own her first, and only other, daughter). If this is how they stay, milking may prove to be very challenging regardless of how still she stands.
I probably should mention she is a total pig, so the scoop of grain she got (hey, she needs an incentive to learn to be milked) lasted her all of 2 minutes. Which, if she was a seasoned milker and had stood like a good girl, I would have been able to get a decent amount of milk from her. I’m a pretty quick milker when I get into (or should I say back into) the groove of things.
THEN lovely miss Toffee decided to try to dunk her udder in the milk pail. Maybe she thought she was helping?
At first I was a little disappointed, although I had been expecting this result. Maybe I should invest in a seasoned milk goat. But if I can train horses that are literally ten times my weight and a LOT bigger, I can certainly teach this darn goat to stand to be milked.
I hope.
~ Nісhеllе Diary of a Homesteader