A Typical Milking

As promised, here are some pictures to give you an idea of what a typical day of milking includes.
It was kind of interesting getting the pictures of me milking as my helpers were all still abed.
Still, all things considered, I think this works pretty well.

The 'empty' bucket. Empty referring to the lack of grain, obviously, not the lack of everything else.

Now we have everything here we need: grain, teat dip, and bag balm.

The milk bucket complete with one and a half wet paper towels.

Scraps collected from the day before.

Changing of the shoes. I do not like to wear Birkenstocks out for milking. Crocs are fine (at least when it isn't too wet out.)

On the milking stanchion.

Goldilocks and Snowflake ready to go.

Goldilocks and Princess having a feeding frenzy.

The grain. I don't have a shelf so a hole in the rocks must suffice.

The teat dip gets to hang on the flap over the door handle and lock. It works.

The stanchion doubles as a towel rack.

Snowflake has to have the cardboard because her neck is too fat to go down far enough to get the grain otherwise.

Snowflake pigging out.

Now I have a chair.

Not the greatest picture. The paper towels are for cleaning any detritus from the udder and teats. Hay, dirt, poop, you name it, you'll find it.



Bag balm. The purpose is to keep teats soft and supple and make milking a little easier. A little bit goes a long way, though, and if you get too much, it actually makes milking more difficult (imagine too much lotion).

Let the milking begin. You can see the stream of milk coming out the left side (my right hand). Basically, to  milk, you grab the teat as near the udder as possible with thumb and forefinger and squeeze beginning with the thumb and forefinger, continuing down with each finger. Snowflake has nice teats that are just the right size for my hands. Smaller teats would require the use of fewer fingers, larger teats often mean the milk is not fully expressed from the teat. 

Once the milk is mostly out, you still grab the teat as close to the udder as possible with thumb and forefinger and squeeze but slide down the teat, expressing milk as you go.

You can see a stream of milk here.

Next is dipping with teat dip. Teat dip is simply diluted iodine. It disinfects the teats which helps keep mastitis and other similar problems at bay. They don't like it but that's tough.

Snowflake has to be right there.

Princess is sticking her head out the door and Snowflake is just watching. George and Fred have been let in the pen but Goldilocks is still in the stanchion (you can see the tip of her ear above the bucket in the lower left corner).

All empty again.

Change shoes again on the way in. (Look like the same picture? It is.)

Milk. Only half a bucket.

Empty scrap bucket. Yuck. It is in need of washing.

Empty jar.

Jar with the strainer upside down waiting for the filter.

Milk filter.

Milk filter and the disk that helps hold it in.

Filter and disk inside the ring that screws on to the funnel part of the filter.

Ditto from the inside.

All assembled and on the jar.

Beautiful milk!

And that's about it. If you'd like to come help sometime, feel free!