Henry Milker

Okay, calling Rachel to the milker discussion please :)

 

I want to use the henry milker on my doe but she is still skittish with it. I tried last night but couldn't really get any milk out of her with it. What am I doing wrong, cause this morning I hand milked 16 oz out of her. My husband wants to be able to milk her for me but I can't seem to get it to do much.

 

It says not to go over 10 lbs of pressure on it and I am pumping up to 10 and then letting it go down a bit and pumping a bit more but I just don't seem to get anything out of her.

 

Help me. :) LOL

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  • lol those boys... they don't always "get" it. My hubs is a sweetheart and mows me a path to my barn so I don't have to wade through the grass to get there... He doesn't get it, but he doesn't question me either... lol

     

  • Cool....I'll try that. I was going to use it last night but my hubby was mowing the yard and she was skittish enough with the lawnmower noise....at least he went in the front of the property while I milked *rolleyes*
  • I only go up to 10 lbs. You can blow a teat if you put too much pressure on. Hand milk her for a bit before you put the cup on... at least 5 quirts. I think even an NDG with large teats still has smaller teats than the large cup is for... but I don't know that for sure. Sounds like she just needs to get used to it. It sounds like she's holding back from you. I've heard they can control it.
  • Okay, I'm using the regular sized teat cup cause her teats are fairly large but I can try the smaller cup. Her teats are long enough I can use all four fingers to hand milk her.

     

    She gets a little antsy when I get to the end and starts dancing around and I need to get some GSE for my teat dip. She hates the dip....kicks me every time. I am a little concerned that she'll kick me when I put the cup on her too cause she may think it is the dip. I'm massaging and bumping her udder pretty much all the time and when I get to the end I am massaging her udder and then go back and milk both sides again.

     

    I haven't tried the milker on her but twice and not gotten much luck so it may just be that she has to get used to it. I'll try the smaller cup this evening and see it that works. Do you only go up to 10 lbs?

  • Sorry it took me so long to get over here!! I've been on a field trip. Answer me a couple Q:

    1. Which size teat cup are you using?
    2. Do you think your doe could be withholding from you?

    A few things to try:

    1. smaller/larger teat cup
    2. hand milking a little to start her milk flow (which you should be doing to "clean out" the teat into a discard cup anyway before you start...)  try a little more than usual.
    3. "bump" her udder with your hand/teat cup to imitate a kid butting the udder to encourage let down.

    Let me know if those do/don't help... we'll go from there. :)

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