Post by mrskk on Jul 23, 2008 16:08:23 GMT -5
The Kick Stop turned into a disaster - she really freaked about it, and broke the rails of her stanchion. I had to let her out and Frank and I rebuilt it before he had to leave for his appointment at noon.
I took an hour to cool off and have lunch, then went back out, fully armed with a positive attitude that I wasn't going to let up until my girl let down. It took two hours, but I got all of her quarters softened up.
I didn't use the Kick Stop again, as I was here alone and was too afraid of another disaster - and didn't want to deal with it if anyone got hurt. I decided that I would see how it went with just clipping her into her stanchion like we've done for the past 14 months and it worked out okay, though there were times I felt like I was in a milking rodeo!
I finally figured out that she couldn't kick me too badly as long as I kept my arm up close against her body. She also settled down better if I didn't let go. It seemed as though she thought she had won something if I let go for even a bit.
I also got the sense that when she started letting down was when she would start kicking more. So then I just became more persistent with it and held on. If the milk went on the floor, it went on the floor (which a great deal of it did!).
I did milk into a small container and dumped it into an ice cream pail with a lid every so often. I ended up with about a quart of milk/colostrum in the pail, and I think I fed about a cup or so to Buttercup before she wasn't interested in it any more. Between what she kicked out of my hand and splashed all over the both of us, I would say that I probably milked out a total of a half gallon.
WoooooooHoooooo! I feel really good - on a par with the birth of Connie yesterday!
I took an hour to cool off and have lunch, then went back out, fully armed with a positive attitude that I wasn't going to let up until my girl let down. It took two hours, but I got all of her quarters softened up.
I didn't use the Kick Stop again, as I was here alone and was too afraid of another disaster - and didn't want to deal with it if anyone got hurt. I decided that I would see how it went with just clipping her into her stanchion like we've done for the past 14 months and it worked out okay, though there were times I felt like I was in a milking rodeo!
I finally figured out that she couldn't kick me too badly as long as I kept my arm up close against her body. She also settled down better if I didn't let go. It seemed as though she thought she had won something if I let go for even a bit.
I also got the sense that when she started letting down was when she would start kicking more. So then I just became more persistent with it and held on. If the milk went on the floor, it went on the floor (which a great deal of it did!).
I did milk into a small container and dumped it into an ice cream pail with a lid every so often. I ended up with about a quart of milk/colostrum in the pail, and I think I fed about a cup or so to Buttercup before she wasn't interested in it any more. Between what she kicked out of my hand and splashed all over the both of us, I would say that I probably milked out a total of a half gallon.
WoooooooHoooooo! I feel really good - on a par with the birth of Connie yesterday!