Milking Machine Woes

Yesterday was a very frustrating morning. It was pouring rain out. I'd been up from 3-4am contemplating using the new milker.

I managed to get it out to the barn and that was about the only success I had! I couldn't get it to create any suction on Trixie's small teats, so I had to run back into the house to get my hand milking stuff.

Then I tried it on Onyx. I got about a pint of milk until she decided to kick it off and start stomping on it. I hand milked her out too.

Finally I tried it on Scilla, but whatever Onyx had done to it made it lose its suction. I hand milked Scilla and Phoebe too.

By this point, the river had started running through the barn again, all the chickens were up in my business to stay dry (I'd forgotten to lock the coop door the night before in my effort to get all the goat kids locked up), and the kitten decided he wanted lap time. I was so frustrated I locked the kitties back in their crate and proceeded to forget about them for a couple hours. Poor kitties.

I finally called the number given with the milker instructions and was pleasantly surprised to have reached Mr. Hoegger himself. He was very patient, talked me through the entire operation, and gave me some good tips.

I'm still nervous about trying it again this morning, but he said a learning curve is normal for me and the goats. This time the chickens are locked up and kitties can stay in their crate until I finish. It's still raining so there's not much I can do about the muddy barn besides bringing plenty of bleach and paper towels in case muddy hooves try to kick inflations off again.

Wish me luck!