A Milk Maid's Confession

I can't handmilk. There I've said it, I'm a wannabe milk maid. Glad to have that off my chest.

My hand pump broke yesterday and I have been struggling to get the girls milked since. I have the replacement part on order(as well as a spare pump), but it can't get here soon enough.

This morning, I got Kat on the stand and put the bucket up under her. After about 4 minutes of milking, she had finished all her feed. "Here, have some alfalfa, Kat." Of course, that made her stompy and, bam, a hoof goes into the bucket of milk. Not a huge loss since I'd only managed to milk about a cup at that point.

So out came the broken pump, which is still more efficient than my hand milking. I am so tempted to go to a once a day milking but I can't seem to keep milk in the house for my family, it is in such demand.

I ran a CMT test (California Mastitis Test) on all the goats this morning because I want to see if Onyx is clearing up. If I have it out, I may as well test them all. Kat and Trix are neg. As is Onyx's right half. The good news is, her left half is showing less infection! There's hope for us yet.