A Simple Non-Electric Milking Machine

The time has arrived that I need to employ a milking machine instead of continuing to hand milk our goats. This time has arrived much sooner than I had hoped, but the arthritis in my hands have made that decision for me. I have a finger that will no longer straighten unless I work on it for a while. It is affecting my grip and I'm dropping a lot of things. Rats. One of the biggest draw backs for me is that I really enjoy milking my goats. I'm sure I still will, it will just be different. I can enjoy the still of the morning, watching the animals and listening to the birds, it will just be different. As the goats and I get used to this new routine, I'm sure there will be challenges and adjustments along the way, so later on, I'll do an update on my new milking routine and tell you what I've learned. For now, here is my very first experience with this machine.

I can't say our milking machine is new because I bought it several years ago. It's been in a storage building awaiting the time that I needed it. This is an example of storing things that will become useful in the times to come. If you have a future project that will make life easier and more productive after the SHTF, and you can afford it now, acquire what you think you will need now and store it away. It will wait for you, just like this milker.

Back when I researched and looked for a simple milking machine the Henry Milker out of Alaska was the only one I found, so I got one. Now there are several companies that have similar products like the one Patrice Lewis at Rural Revolution uses, the Udderly EZ Milker. Patrice did an article on how she uses one to milk her cow here.  If there is anyone out there that uses or has experience with a non-electric milking machine, please share with us. I would really appreciate anything you can share. I wrote this part of the article before we went to the barn and tried out the machine. You'll realize why I said this later on.

The components of our milking kit included the vacuum pump, four tubes, two tube cleaning brushes, two wide mouth quart jars, two lids, a micro fiber cloth and a carrying case. The directions are simple and easy to follow.

Copper with her kids back in March

Copper, our three year old doe, was the victim for the first trial of milking with this machine. This is the second year we have milked Copper and she is very easy going and a good milker. She looked at me a few times as I fumbled around trying to get the bucket, which we brought to protect and support the jar, and the syringe that goes over the teat in place to begin this process.

At first I couldn't get a good suction going so the pressure would build up a vacuum and begin withdrawing the milk. With Frank's help, we finally got things going and the milk flowing.

Yes, we always have our radios, even when we're together.

The pressure gauge has to be pumped much more often than I expected, and even though I had to squeeze it less often than if I had milked by hand, it really wasn't that different than milking by hand except I didn't have to squeeze as hard.

I had to restart the suction/vacuum process twice on each teat because the milk stopped flowing. The directions included this possibility, and directed to release the syringe from the teat and start over, which we did.

Even with restarting twice on each teat, we only withdrew about half of Copper's milk. The rest I ended up milking out by hand into the bucket. I'm glad Frank recommended we bring it.

I'm sure with practice this machine would withdraw more of the milk, and I would be get much more adept. Even with all of the commotion of trying to figure out this machine, Copper was very cooperative through it all, and I was grateful. Frank did end up feeding her quite a bit more than usual just to keep her occupied while I tried the milker and he took the pictures. Even the flash on the camera didn't bother her. She did a very good job.

The Henry Milker worked just as advertised. The instructions and videos found on their website were helpful since I did run into a few things that were mentioned. Because I had access to the information ahead of time, I knew what to do when these situations occurred.

No filtering necessary

Pros? The milk goes directly into the jar which prevents any hair or dust from getting into it like it does when you hand milk into a bucket. The milk doesn't have to be filtered. Just change out the lid for a regular plastic one and put the jar in a bucket of water to chill, then into the refrigerator it goes. Even inexperienced people could milk an animal using this machine.

Cons? I have read in other places and heard from an acquaintance that you still need to finish the milking by hand if you want to

Copper's udder

make sure you get all of the milk and keep production to a maximum. The thing I noticed as we were increasing the pressure to create the vacuum and get the milk to flow, was that Copper's teat was pulled down and lengthened in the syringe. My first thought was that I didn't like that. What will that do to the tissue of her teat if this process is repeated over and over twice a day? Will it cause the teats to lengthen and stay that way? Will it cause them to loosen and lose their natural elasticity and break down the structure of the orifice? Will it cause them to leak over time because the tissues have been stretched so often?

One Stripe's udder

I don't even know if these are questions that address a valid concern, but my first thought was I don't want that to happen to my does' udders. I have grown very particular about the udders my does have and we have bred them to have certain characteristics. Another thing that has caused this concern is a video about another company that makes non-electric goat milking machines that shows the process compared to an electric milking machine. Some of the does in this video have very large teats and the suctioning motion of the electric milking machine rhythmically pulls on the teats. I think this process over time has caused part of the shaping of the teats. I don't see how it can keep from it. There are also some people that prefer a large bulbous type of teat, even for hand milking, because you get more milk per squeeze, therefore you don't have to squeeze as many times to get the same amount of milk as a doe with smaller teats. Maybe I am just backward in my choice of goat teats, but I don't think so. I think the straight, smaller structure of this type of teat is much closer to what is found in nature as opposed to what is found with structured breeding practices.

So, what about my arthritis? I don't know. But for now I will continue milking by hand and doing the best I can. I may need to limit how many goats I have in milk at once, I don't know. It is very interesting to finally get to a place where I thought I would have to give in and quit milking by hand even though I didn't want to. Now that I have tried it, I really don't want to use a machine, not unless I really, really, really have to, and for now I don't have to, so I'm not. I thought about just deleting this article and not finishing it, but then again I thought maybe it would be of use to someone, so here it is. Food for thought.

Until next time - Fern

The Sounds of a Peaceful Morning Milking

I've told you before how much I enjoy milking in the mornings. Listening to the birds, the goats, and just watching the world wake up for the day. Well, recently I took the camera with me and recorded a few more short videos. Just for you. So, without further ado, A Peaceful Morning Milking.

You will notice a metalic kind of sound in this video. I have just begun to milk, and the bucket is empty. Copper fusses at me every morning because she has to wait and be second in line. She just doesn't see any reason she should have to wait for her mother, One Stripe, to be milked first. If you milk more than one doe, and are consistent with your line up, you will find that they figure out their place in line, although at first the goats new to the milking routine will try to cut line. 

Now the sounds of milking have changed and Copper is on the stand. I was surprised at how well the sounds came out while taking these videos with my camera. Interesting. By the time I am about half way through milking Copper, the babies start to get restless because they know that they will get to have breakfast soon.

This was the first morning I noticed one of the kids up on their 'dog house' playing. This was originally our Great Pyrenees, Pearl's, doghouse when she was a puppy. Now we use it for the kids when we pen them up away from their moms at night. The first fresheners are still fussing at me because I didn't feed them out in the feed trough like I do on most mornings. This morning, I brought them in on the milk stand to eat individually. I have been doing this off and on for a few weeks now.

This video shows the kids 'escaping' the pen for breakfast. It's a little shaky here and there, but shows you the routine.

Now I have Lady Bug on the stand and I'm showing you how I feel the babies kicking. You can usually, but not always, feel the babies moving around when the does are about three months into their gestation. At first the babies are higher up on the side and up closer to the rib cage. Since all of the young does are due next week, their babies have dropped down and moved back closer to the udder. All of their tail bone ligaments are very loose, and their udders are growing out nicely. I handle the does a lot when they are on the stand. I want them to be comfortable so when it comes time to be milked, that will be the only new thing added to this routine. I show you how I get them comfortable standing with a little wider stance. This gives more room for the milk bucket and for me to comfortably reach their teats to milk. It is a matter of patience and repetition. After a while they will be comfortable and not resist the repositioning of their leg. 

This is Cricket. Here I show you how much I handle the does. At first they kind of cringe with all of this attention since they are a little skittish about being on the stand at all. But by this time they know they will get to eat while I mess with them. I've also trimmed their hooves once since I started bringing them in. It's much easier for me to have the milk stand hold the goat, and I don't have to bend over as much making it easier on my back.

Now for the switch over. I will take Cricket out and let Penny in. Penny is the most hesitant to come in to the stand, so sometimes I have to bring her in, but she's doing better. At first when these young does left the stand they were kind of lost and didn't know which way to go, but now they have figured it out for the most part. Penny is also like her mother, Copper. She will usually come in, turn in a circle, then jump up on the stand. It's funny how that runs in families.

I had to find an application to shorten the videos I had originally taken before Blogger would upload them. First I had to learn how to do the video on my camera, now I am having to learn how to alter them to fit into the blog format. You know, if we had never started this blog, we wouldn't have bought a new camera a year ago, and I wouldn't be learning any of this stuff. So, thank you for encouraging us in our blogging endeavors. We continue to learn much all of the time.

As I try to think of the things we do and have learned about goats so I can share them with you, it helps me to really think through everything. I guess that can go for just about anything we do. We have felt all along that the purpose of this blog is to share what we have learned so that it might benefit others in some way. I hope that is the case.

Until next time - Fern

Milking the Goats - Part of Our Daily Harvest

There are about as many different ways to milk animals as there are people. This is the way we do it.

 
We start off with boiling water. We use this on everything that comes in contact with the milk - the bucket, jar, lid, funnel and clothes pins.


Clothes pins? I'm sure you're wondering what clothes pins have to do with milking. We use plastic clothes pins to hold up the coffee filter. They stand up better than wooden ones with daily immersion in boiling water.

Sound confusing? We try to do things as economically as possible. We filter our milk with coffee filters that you can buy in large quantities from a warehouse market. It's cheaper than the specialty filters that go with our funnel.

We started off with a regular canning funnel, then we got this type of funnel that is made for specialty filters, but we use the coffee filters. We still use the clothes pins, because the filter tends to slide down into the funnel when you pour in the milk.

Okay. So back to the boiling water. After we disinfect all of the milk handling equipment, we're ready to go. Some milk buckets come with lids or you can buy them separately. None of our buckets have lids, but we have found that a cake pan - now don't laugh - and a regular skillet lid, fit on our milk buckets perfectly. The cake pan has an added benefit, too. We use it to carry the rag for washing udders.

                    Now we are ready to head to the barn.

Here is our set up. Frank built the milk stand so it would be a good height for sitting in a chair. This is more comfortable for me. We put cement blocks at the end of the stand for the goats to step up on.

I find it very interesting that within a few weeks of beginning a new milking routine, when new kids are born, the does learn the order in which they are milked. I am milking three does now and feeding one young doe separately. They all know when it is 'their turn'. First up is One Stripe, my favorite. The goats get to eat while they are being milked.

 
The first step in milking is to clean the udder. I use an udder wash on an old wash cloth. I buy the udder wash by the gallon. It is diluted 1/4 teaspoon per 5 cups of water and will last for years. Still, we try to conserve. 

So I put the wash in an old soap bottle to control how much I pour onto the cloth. I wash the teats, the udder and rub under the stomach area to clean off any dirt or grass so it won't fall into the milk bucket. We have friends that milk goats and cows. None of them use the udder wash - they use a bucket of warm, soapy water to clean udders. One of them uses boiling water on their buckets and jars and one uses only hot, soapy water. Everyone has their own way of doing things.

The first stream of milk from the teat always goes into a strip cup, which is just a cup with a fine strainer in the lid. This allows a visual check for mastitis or other problems with the milk and clears the end of the teat of any debris or bacteria that   could affect the quality of the milk.

Now we are ready to milk. Explaining or even showing someone how to milk is difficult. Experience, in this case, is definitely the best teacher. One thing I have learned is to be careful not to hold onto the teat too high up or close to the udder,

because you will pinch some of the udder tissue causing pain to the goat and sometimes blood in the milk. If you get blood in the milk it will not hurt you, but it looks really gross. It will settle to the bottom of the jar, so you can tell if it is there. That milk always goes to the dog at our house!

Since I am milking three goats, I bring one 'milking' bucket and another bucket to hold all of the milk. I pour the milk into the extra bucket after I finish milking each doe. That way my bucket is not too full, and if one of
the goats kicks or decides to put their foot in the bucket that day, all of the milk is not ruined.

Frank built this little shelf to hold the milking supplies and my extra milk bucket. It's great!

 As I milk, I 'bump' the doe's udder to stimulate them to let down their milk. This is imitating what the kids do when they nurse. It is surprising how much extra milk you can get at the end of the milking when you bump them a few more times. This last milk or stripping has most of the cream in it, so you want to take all you can. It also keeps the doe producing as much milk as possible. If you leave any, she will reabsorb it and it will 'program' her body to only make as much as you take. 

When I finish milking a doe, I use a teat dip. This is an iodine solution that helps to close up the orifice in the teat to prevent debris and bacteria entering in and causing infection or mastitis.

Then the goat jumps off the stand and goes back into their part of the barn. It takes a little bit of time to train the goats what to do in the milking routine, but once they learn it, it becomes just that - routine - and they do it very well.
 
We take the milk back to the house after we finish milking all three does. The quicker the milk is strained, chilled and refrigerated, the better the quality of the milk. After we strain the milk, we set the jars in buckets of cold tap water to chill it. This helps it to cool off quicker than putting it directly into the frig. After we have finished chilling the milk, we pour the water into the washing machine. We used to pour it down the drain, but it seemed like such a waste of water.

We do not pasteurize our milk. Many of the nutrients contained in fresh, whole milk are destroyed or diminished in the pasteurization process and we prefer whole, raw milk. We do not sale, barter or give away our raw milk. It is solely for our consumption - except what the dog, chickens and garden get.

Milking animals is an every day job - day in and day out - rain or shine - hot or cold - once or twice a day - depending on what routine you choose. It can be a very peaceful time of harvesting part of your daily nourishment, or a chore and a burden. The milk is wonderful, fresh and nutritious. And then sometimes you are overrun with milk and don't have enough time or energy to produce something with it. 

This is a life style that not many people choose to live. It is a lot of work and I love it!

Until next time - Fern