Post by lillian on Sept 8, 2004 20:53:42 GMT -5
Hey Everyone!
Hope your milking experiences are better than mine at the moment.
Buttercup is holding up really badly in three quarters. The one quarter that she lets me milk is still blood tinged, but she doesn't hold back on that one. The calf has been nursing on the other three. I go to milk her by hand and I get about 6-12 good squirts and then the teat deflates and then nothing! No matter how hard I try. If I go to another teat, I will get the same thing. Then I can go back to the first one for another 6 squirts. It's very frustrating and I can't get her milked out at this pace. And it's very hard physically to keep moving around and working so hard at it - for basically nothing. Today I separated the calf from her for the day and was able to get 2 quarts from one of the fronts while the calf took the other front. I got very little from the third back quarter but was successful with the bloody back quarter.
The milker came this afternoon, and I was thinking not a minute too soon! But when I tried it on her tonight - I almost cried! It's the belly Surge type. Her bag is soooo big and her teats so far apart and so low to the ground that it can't possibly hang and attach properly. So in desperation, I taped three of the inflations and tried milking her with only one inflation with the milker sitting beside her on the ground. This worked fine for the "bloody quarter" which she doesn't hold up. I put the milker on the other three quarters and she still held back!!!!! I'm afraid I will hurt her somehow if I leave it on there with no let down. I have tried a wash cloth soaked in very warm water as a compress but that didn't make a difference either.
Are we allowed to kick the cow? It almost seems like she's standing there looking at me, chewing her cud, and saying - "I'm in control here - not you."
Oh, one more thing. Tonight when I tried the milker on her, after a little while, she started pawing the ground, (sending hay flying all over me and the milker) and acting like she wanted to lie down. What does that mean? Was she in pain?
Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.
Struggling along,
Lillian
P.S. Why am I doing this? Oh yeah, I like it. I remember now.
Hope your milking experiences are better than mine at the moment.
Buttercup is holding up really badly in three quarters. The one quarter that she lets me milk is still blood tinged, but she doesn't hold back on that one. The calf has been nursing on the other three. I go to milk her by hand and I get about 6-12 good squirts and then the teat deflates and then nothing! No matter how hard I try. If I go to another teat, I will get the same thing. Then I can go back to the first one for another 6 squirts. It's very frustrating and I can't get her milked out at this pace. And it's very hard physically to keep moving around and working so hard at it - for basically nothing. Today I separated the calf from her for the day and was able to get 2 quarts from one of the fronts while the calf took the other front. I got very little from the third back quarter but was successful with the bloody back quarter.
The milker came this afternoon, and I was thinking not a minute too soon! But when I tried it on her tonight - I almost cried! It's the belly Surge type. Her bag is soooo big and her teats so far apart and so low to the ground that it can't possibly hang and attach properly. So in desperation, I taped three of the inflations and tried milking her with only one inflation with the milker sitting beside her on the ground. This worked fine for the "bloody quarter" which she doesn't hold up. I put the milker on the other three quarters and she still held back!!!!! I'm afraid I will hurt her somehow if I leave it on there with no let down. I have tried a wash cloth soaked in very warm water as a compress but that didn't make a difference either.
Are we allowed to kick the cow? It almost seems like she's standing there looking at me, chewing her cud, and saying - "I'm in control here - not you."
Oh, one more thing. Tonight when I tried the milker on her, after a little while, she started pawing the ground, (sending hay flying all over me and the milker) and acting like she wanted to lie down. What does that mean? Was she in pain?
Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.
Struggling along,
Lillian
P.S. Why am I doing this? Oh yeah, I like it. I remember now.