Ideas for COVID Quarantine, IV

Learn to milk a goat!

OK, so this is not something that everyone has access to.  But, this is my world.

So, I do have a milking season and usually start milking one or two of my goats when their kids are two weeks old.  But, this girl has had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week, which has resulted in me also having a (slightly less) horrible week and I've had to start milking early.

This is Tulip.  She's one of my 2016 babies, so born and bred on our farm.  She's usually a slim sleek statuesque goat.  She's even fairly slim while pregnant.  I knew all my pregnant does were due to kid between March 30-May 15 and I already had one doe have triplets.  Tulip is too sleek for her own good.  Usually, the girl's udders fill up pretty good right before they kid, but hers didn't, so I thought she was a week or two away from kidding.

For example, 

Violet is very close to kidding.  Her udder will probably get even bigger than this right before.

Anyway, since I didn't think Tulip was close enough to kidding, I left her out in the pasture with the rest of the herd.  She chose the coldest night of the month, 39 degrees, to have her kids and she did it out in the field instead of in the shed.  I didn't discover her until late the next morning.  One of the kids was dead and the other just barely alive and very weak and cold.  I rushed them to the barn and did everything I could think of for the baby.  I bottle fed him (he could barely suck) and I warmed him up.  He lived about 24 hours, but ultimately, we lost him.

So then Tulip was full of milk with no babies to feed.  I had spent some time last season training her to the milking stand, but she had never been milked.  So, she had a crash course in getting milk.  Poor thing.  Just lost her babies and having to suffer the indignity of having her milk taken.  But, we were getting into the rhythm of it and she had progressed enough that she was no longer kicking at my hand and the bucket.

**sigh**

I usually only milk in the morning and leave the kids with their mamas for the rest of the day so I don't have to milk more than once.  But, since she has no kids, I'm having to milk morning and evening.  It's a pain, but it couldn't have happened at a better time.  I mean, I can't go and do anything else, so I'm always around morning and night.

So, I went out to the barn on Monday morning to milk and took a peek in the stall to see if Violet had kidded yet (I learned my lesson and brought Violet into the barn early).  But, what do I see?  Tulip..hanging from the hay net by her foot.

Obviously, I was too panicked to whip my camera out, but this is exactly what she looked like.  (Seriously, y'all, I can draw better than that crappy picture, but just so you get an idea of what I faced.)

I thought she was dead.  She could have been trapped up to 12 hours.  I touched her leg first and it was cold, but when I touched her neck, she stirred a little so I knew she was still alive.  I tried to get her foot untangled, but was having no success because she was too heavy to lift to take the pressure off.  Tom had chastised me just a couple of days before this for not calling him when I need help.  So, I got my phone out of my pocket and tried to call.  I'm telling y'all, it was just like a nightmare I've had many times in which I'm trying to call the police in a dire emergency and my fingers don't work and I don't know the phone number and I can't find it and I fumble and fail multiple times.  

I finally made the call, and shouted "help me!", then dropped my phone and went back to trying to get her untangled.  I did manage to get her foot out before Tom made it to the barn.

So, she couldn't, and still can't, use her leg and it's all swollen.

It's hard to tell what this is, but it's her eye.  It was completely swollen shut, probably from banging it against the wall for hours trying to get loose.  Poor thing.  I hope there's no permanent damage.  She's on anti-inflammatory and pain meds and I'll confer with the vet again on Friday to see if further action is warranted.  

In the meantime, the milk production doesn't stop.  It seems cruel, but there's a possibility of getting mastitis if I don't keep her milked.  So, Tom has been helping me with the milking, mostly getting her on and off the milking stand.

So here I am in all my morning glory, bed head, and coveralls over pajamas, and sexy crocs, milking my lame goat.

She has an appetite, so that's good.

You can see that right front leg just dangling there.  I'm helping support her weight with my knee since I'm sure it's difficult for her to stand still that way with all the weight on one front foot.

So, if you want to come stay with us, I will teach you how to milk a goat for free!  And, you can practice twice a day.  😊

Any takers?

See my other ideas for using your quarantine time wisely.