Milking Goats

So my second day here they taught me how to milk goats. I think they did it right away so I could be another person on the schedule who has to get up at 6:30 to do it. :) I was happy to learn! This stuff is so fun. They milk twice a day: 6:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. I thought you had to do it 12 hours apart exactly, but I guess not. The process is quite involved. They sell the milk here at the farm in half gallon containers. It's Grade A Raw Milk. Supposed to be really good for you b/c still has all the enzymes and things. I have yet to try it - just haven't had time and don't think of it when I'm in the kitchen. I'll let you know how it is!

Empty milk containers

EVERYTHING is sanitized

More sanitizing

Stickers for the milk jugs

Caps

Sanitizing

Writing the date and P for PM on the sticker

Iodine for disinfecting the teats

I learned that these are called stanchions. There are 8 of them b/c 8 goats are milked.

Each stanchion has a name and a place to put a food bowl. The bowl of food gets the goat to go to their place. Then you steal the food away from the goat once they get there. Then while you are milking her, she gets her food back so she is calm, distracted, and happy.

a goat. she knows we have food.

They go right to their places! Well, mostly, except the naughty ones who know where the food bins are.

Daisy the goat. Looking so cute.

I'm a milker! A milk-maid? A maid-a-milkin'?

I wasn't very fast. I did 2 and the other guy did 6 in the same amount of time.

After we finished, we had to strain the milk, then pour it into the jugs, then put it in the freezer immediately (I forget why...). Lots of cleaning up. The whole process took 1 1/2 hours. I guess some people can do it in 45 mins - once you get really fast at milking. I was really surprised at how careful you have to be about sanitizing everything and making sure you don't touch anything. Never thought I'd be milking goats!