How We Built Our Milk Stand

Hello, Frank here.

Well, we had a problem. We had goats that needed to be milked, and since a goat's udder and teats are a lot closer to the ground than a cow's, we needed a milk stand. We looked in all of the traditional goat catalogs, and found the vast majority of goat milking stands were of a portable type nature. Then there were those that were made for grooming show goats, which were also portable. Both of these types being portable, just did not meet our need. Even though they worked for their intended purpose, we needed something that says, "Take a licking and keep on ticking." In other words, it needed to be hard rock durable. 

So, we started looking around at what people used for milk stands. There were a handful of articles about how to build them, but in most of the information we found, the milk stand was a secondary part of the picture. The milk goat itself was the primary part of the picture. So, Fern sat down in a chair, which was going to be her milking chair and pretended like she was milking a goat. We measured how far her hands were from the floor, then we roughly guess-timated how far a goat's teat is from the surface it's standing on. Now we had our elevation.

Other things to  consider. How long is a goat? That was pretty easy. How wide does the goat stand need to be? Don't forget that when you milk a goat, you open their back legs just a little bit extra. You certainly don't want the goat stand too narrow, but then you don't want it too wide, because the goat will naturally move away from you. 

I guess last is how high do you put their feed bucket? And do you use a feed bucket? With that thought in mind, do you make the feed stand adjustable? Does it need to move up and down? Well, you can see in the picture that we went with a stationary feeder and decided not to use a bucket at all.

In the world we live in now days everything is specified by it's minimum requirements. I don't support this concept. I think there should be a maximum requirement. You always milk from the same side of the goat all of the time, which is normally the right side. So we started building our milk stand. All of the lumber is treated, there are no nails, all screws were used. There is no building or safety reason for this, it's just that my elbows will not drive nails anymore, so I chose to use screws. So, this is how we did it. Enjoy the pictures.

If you have any questions or comments, or you need clarification, please either put it in the comments, or send us an email. If your goats are bigger, modify the plans. If you're milking Pygmies, I feel sorry for you. I especially feel sorry for your fingers, but each to their own. I assure you, I can stand on this milk stand and jump up and down and it is not going to budge. As I mentioned earlier about the milk stand, avoid minimum requirements in life.

We'll talk more later. Frank