Post by pipergrey93 on Dec 21, 2009 10:56:43 GMT -5
Adventures of a Newbe...The perfect anti-kicking device...The cow's tangled up....
Well Janene and I brainstormed about how to come up with a make-shift stanchion b/c, while milking, Eunice has tried to kick my head off since she had the baby. Janene suggested the solution that worked best, which was tying her up and using a cattle panel to close her up against the wall. Well, while it was the best solution, it wasn’t easy to say the least, it just enabled me to get enough milk out to help the situation w/o getting killed.
I had to crop her legs last night, so I was hoping this morning she would be a good girl at milking. Nope. She kicked and carried on until the panel got angled in towards her feet at the bottom. This caused her leg to get caught in between the bars when she kicked at me. Because she had kicked so high and so hard, her back leg was caught up high in the panel and while she was struggling to get the back leg un-caught, she got her front leg caught also.
Well, here I was with my cow all tangled up in a panel. I didn’t know whether to panic and run get help or continue milking. I mean, her teats were more accessible than ever with her back leg up in the air. And since her front leg was caught too, she had to stand perfectly still in order to balance herself on her non-milking side.
I decided to maintain the status quo long enough to milk a few seconds and let her consider her predicament. I must say it was very pleasant to be able to milk and not have a hoof constantly flying towards my head. Anyway, I put down my bucket and proceeded to de-tangle Eunice. Thankfully, I was able to get Eunice un-done without having to involve things like neighbors and tractors.
Once she was standing back upright on all fours, I went back to milking, figuring this would be a great training session. Lol - for the rest of the session, she stood perfectly still and the one time she did start to move, I did my ‘bad cow’ noise and she froze. I was finally able to empty her udder with the exception of one teat that I left for junior.
I don’t know the moral of this tale except maybe God really does watch out for fools and their poor animals or maybe that sometimes things just have a way of working themselves out! Sandy
Well Janene and I brainstormed about how to come up with a make-shift stanchion b/c, while milking, Eunice has tried to kick my head off since she had the baby. Janene suggested the solution that worked best, which was tying her up and using a cattle panel to close her up against the wall. Well, while it was the best solution, it wasn’t easy to say the least, it just enabled me to get enough milk out to help the situation w/o getting killed.
I had to crop her legs last night, so I was hoping this morning she would be a good girl at milking. Nope. She kicked and carried on until the panel got angled in towards her feet at the bottom. This caused her leg to get caught in between the bars when she kicked at me. Because she had kicked so high and so hard, her back leg was caught up high in the panel and while she was struggling to get the back leg un-caught, she got her front leg caught also.
Well, here I was with my cow all tangled up in a panel. I didn’t know whether to panic and run get help or continue milking. I mean, her teats were more accessible than ever with her back leg up in the air. And since her front leg was caught too, she had to stand perfectly still in order to balance herself on her non-milking side.
I decided to maintain the status quo long enough to milk a few seconds and let her consider her predicament. I must say it was very pleasant to be able to milk and not have a hoof constantly flying towards my head. Anyway, I put down my bucket and proceeded to de-tangle Eunice. Thankfully, I was able to get Eunice un-done without having to involve things like neighbors and tractors.
Once she was standing back upright on all fours, I went back to milking, figuring this would be a great training session. Lol - for the rest of the session, she stood perfectly still and the one time she did start to move, I did my ‘bad cow’ noise and she froze. I was finally able to empty her udder with the exception of one teat that I left for junior.
I don’t know the moral of this tale except maybe God really does watch out for fools and their poor animals or maybe that sometimes things just have a way of working themselves out! Sandy