Got milk..?

Last spring I had 4 doe goats to milk every morning, and that took a lot of time. This spring we only had one doe give birth, and "freshen," with milk. Technically, once the kids are two weeks old, they can be locked away from their dam at night. In the morning the doe has a full udder, and can be milked, then the little family can be reunited for the rest of the day. I've been putting off separating the kids for several reasons. Partly it makes me a little sad to keep them from their mama all night, partly because I was not excited to add in milking chores to my morning routine, remembering how much time it took me last year, but mostly because I knew that Bliss was going to be a handful on the milk stand. She is a friendly goat, but not as tame and placid as her predecessors.  The kids are 5 week old now, and it is high time that I started milking, so last night I locked the kids into the goat cozy with their grandmother, a bucket of water and a few flakes of hay. I have to admit, it made things pretty simple this morning. I filled the grain bucket on the milk stand for Bliss, dished up the donkeys little breakfast bowls, and didn't have to wrestle with 4 goats at the gate, because three were locked up.  I let Bliss into the back yard, put the donkey breakfast bowls down in the pasture, led Bliss to the stand and showed her where the food was. She happily tucked in to the grain, and I worked fast to hobble her rear legs so she couldn't kick my teeth out. It took some doing, but I was ultimately successful.

Her teats are tiny, and I could only use my thumb first two fingers, but she let her milk down nicely and only attempted to kick me a few times. Then she ran out of grain and threw quite a tantrum. I scooped more into her bowl, and that helped for a few minutes, until she realized she was quite full and didn't like me messing with her udder one bit.  I prevailed a bit longer, then, when she was acting calm I quit and let her off the bench.

Her kids were happy to see her, and tucked right in for some breakfast, their little tails wagging a mile a minute.  Of course I'd left them some milk, and Bliss will make for them all day.

So now a new routine is in place, and hopefully Bliss will learn to have nice milk stand manners. There will be yogurt, cheese and goat milk soap in our future!