A goat milkstand for a friend

My hubby built this goat milking stand for a friend.  She needed one a little sturdier than ours though, since she wanted it for boer goats, and for doing hooves, worming, etc.  So DH put sides on it, and used 4 x 4 posts for the legs.  That should hold them nicely!

Ping and her beautifully lopsided udder.

Sweet Ping

A couple of hours after milking

Two days later, right before milking

She stands quite nicely for us

Although her udder is lopsided, she is giving us about a gallon a day, so we're not perturbed.  We asked some "experts" about it, and they assure us that all is well and there's no issue.  She just won't win any udder beauty contests, ha!  But for the FF that she is, it's a nice sized udder, and her milk is delicious, she co-operates quite well on the stand, so who am I to complain?

The long wait is over!!!

We went out this morning to milk the goats, and look what sight greeted us!  Butterbelle had her calf all on her own, without any help.  Mom was doing well and baby was nursing well.  We're going to leave them for a few days before trying to milk.

So beautiful!!

Milk Stanchion Complete

Never-ending projects! Our "to do" list is a mile long!

DH and our oldest son started the concrete work in the milk stanchion. We ran out of concrete and had to stop for the night.

In the meantime, I realized I was off on Butterbelle's due date.  I re-calculated and realized she is due anytime between June 6th and `12th.  She looks uncomfortable and spends a good deal of time just laying down.

Her udder is swollen with milk.  We'll eventually have a calf!

Goat Shed and Pen

Well, to say Poppet did not enjoy being crated every evening would be an understatement!  So we set to work building a shed (Senz style!) and pen so we could have her penned up 24/7 to wean her off Ping and milk her morning and evening.

Building the pen

Of course the goats all had to inspect it

Happy helpers :)

Lilly loves me.  Dearly.  I'm going to miss her when she has to go back to her own goat mama.

The completed shed and pen.

Of course the first night and the next day there was a whole lot of "crying" from little Poppet.  Ping wasn't ecstatic about the whole idea either... but Poppet is over 3 months old and eating hay and grain just fine.

Monday Morning on the Farm

Butterbelle has to be tied up while we milk or she tries to eat the goat feed!

Piggies enjoying breakfast

Awww.. say hello to the piglets!

So cute and perfect!

After-milking mayhem!  Poppet is balanced atop the milk stand!

Pretty flowers :)  My clematis that was supposed to grow on that support died :(

Bounce sharing his basket with a kitten

Dairy Cow Milk Stanchion & Random Photos

That's what we've been busy with this weekend.  Relatively easy, it's not finished yet, we want to concrete the floor.

Ping decided to model it for us:

She's quite photogenic don't you think?  (Seriously, who thought I'd love goats so much!?)

Poor Poppet.  She has to be locked up for the night and doesn't enjoy it.  Working on a pen for her so she can be separated from mom 24/7.

The ducks are getting big.. and beautiful!

We have a nice variety. Three Pekins, two Rouens, three Ancona and two Welsh Harlequins.

Goodnight!

Udderly wonderful

It took us a while to figure out the whole milking thing with Ping. When we first got her, her milk tasted AWFUL! A really bitter, chemically kind of taste. I contacted the breeder we bought her from who was very puzzled about that, but later she contacted me and said she had tried the milk from her remaining goats and found their milk to have the same bad taste. So she walked her pasture and found a patch of wild onion growing that the goats had been happily munching. That seems to have been what it was, because after about 2 weeks Ping's milk tasted fine. It sure took a long time for that to get out of her system! Plus we had to keep Poppet separate from Ping overnight so we could milk her in the morning, otherwise Poppet (formerly Dora) would drink all the milk and leave very little for us.

Anyway, I thought I would post pics of her udder and Lillys as a comparison. Remember Lilly is an older goat, Ping is a first freshener two year old.  The photos were taken in the morning, when the goats had full udders.

First Lilly:

So she's not going to win any prizes for her udder, but her teats are nice hand sized teats and the orifices are nice and big.  The right side of her udder holds more milk, so she's kind of lopsided.  Easy milker, she stand on the stand without trouble as long as she has food :)

Okay, now Ping:

Comparing the two I'm sure you can understand why it took us some adjusting to milking her!  Her teats point out so far they touch her legs and her teats are tiny compared to Lilly.  With Lilly I can use my whole hand to milk, with Ping I have to use two or three fingers instead.  Her left teat is longer, but the right side of her udder holds twice as much milk as the left.  Now I'm not saying she's a terrible milk goat, far from!  She stand beautifully on the stand and her orifices are nice sized as well, AND I know the udder of a FF will improve with time.  We are very happy with her.  

And the result of the morning milking from Ping:

That's a 1/2 gallon jar.  Some of that is foam, so it's not as full as it looks... but is that awesome or what!?  As you can see, the right side of her udder stays lopsided even when empty.  I'm not sure if that will change next year or if that's how she'll always be.  Overall we're very happy with her.  She's quite sweet :)  (Sorry about the messy stand, since these were taken we have started leaving a small broom in there to clean off the stand before each milking.)