The Goat Milk Rodeo!
In the last post, I wrote about a great system for keeping the goats from stepping in, or spilling their milk when I’m milking them. You can read it here. This system has worked well for me since I adopted it. In fact, it hasn’t failed once. However, I HAVE failed! It’s happened a few times now and while it doesn’t usually result in spilled milk, it has resulted in stress on animals and myself. Although, it has made for a very entertaining story! Ladies and gentlemen, this is the goat milk event at the Growing Freedom Homestead Rodeo!
When Mary first proposed the idea of goats, I was very skeptical. She convinced me by telling me that she would do the milking and I wouldn’t have to. She did, and she did a great job at it! Eventually she got pregnant though and things changed. This was her most difficult pregnancy and she experienced some nerve damage that left her bed ridden for a few weeks. Any movement caused her extreme pain! I took over the milking for her during this time, and for the rest of the pregnancy, and for the first while after the baby was born… and… well, at that point it just became part of my routine going forward. I admit that for some time I didn’t like it. I got easily frustrated with the goats and I allowed some resentment. However, I began to actually enjoy some elements of it and I made a decision to just officially own the job and enjoy it. It doesn’t mean I enjoy it 100% of the time, but I do enjoy it most of the time.
One of the things I like most about milking is the quiet time outside where I can either listen to a podcast, audiobook, or just let my mind wander. I’m a very imaginative person, and I sometimes just like to explore thoughts or ideas without restraint. That is hard to do with demands of work, kids, etc. Milking is a time where I have my routine and I don’t have to be fully mentally engaged. However, this occasionally can come back to bite me. While milking doesn’t take my full attention, there are certain parts of it that I have to make sure I do right and am not too distracted by my mental wanderings!
Not long after we moved here I went out to milk. I milked the first goat with no problems and moved onto goat number two. She is actually the better behaved on the stand so I didn’t expect any issues at all. Everything went smoothly but I was absorbed in thought! I don’t remember what was occupying my mind, but I was not paying attention to what I was doing. I have mentioned this before, but I cut the legs off our milk stand so that I could milk in the animal trailer during our journey to move across the country. As a temporary solution I set the stand on top of some scrap lumber. I finished up the milking process, set the milk pail aside, and took the goat’s head out of the stanchion. Goats are very routine oriented and she knows that when I unlock her, the next thing to do is to jump down off the stand and head for the barn door. What I forgot to do was to disconnect the webbing that secures the goat’s feet! She understandably panicked and started flailing all over the place! The webbing that secures her feet goes through the eyebolts on the milk stand and is secured behind the stand so she wasn’t able to break free and the milk stand started bouncing around. I jumped in and tried to hold her foot still so that I could get her feet free. This made her panic even more and she ended up tripping on the webbing and falling on top of me! So, I’m laying on the barn floor with a crazed goat running on nothing but adrenaline and survival instincts that is kicking and flailing like her life depends on it, all while I’m trying to get her feet untied. This whole time the legless milk stand is bouncing all over the place and a threat to both of us! Finally one of her feet came lose, and I was able to get her other foot out. We were both fine, but she was a little skittish around the stand for the next few days, and I was dirty and had a bruised rear end. Somehow, the milk pail didn’t get spilled!
I would like to say that this is the only time it has happened, but I can’t. It’s just that in times past I was able to catch it sooner and stop the goat from jumping off. So, the system works great as long as the operator doesn’t mess it all up!
