Does anyone use the Hoegger Milking Machine? It sounds really nice to not have lines to clean. However, I can not find any customer reviews! We don't have many goats to milk but my husband will be helping with milking sometimes and we also want something easy for our "goat babysitter" when we go away every so often.
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OK great, that's what I was thinking you most likely did. Thanks for the additional information!
And I do have a cover (piece of plywood) to put over the hole when the goats are getting up and down off the stand and when I'm stripping them before and after putting on the inflations.
When I had la manchas, I would use the regular inflations on all of the goats, and I didn't have any problems with any of the NDs. I just sold my last LM a couple weeks ago. Now that I only have the NDs, I use the smaller inflations. They are just easier to handle, being shorter. I do have one goat though, whose teats barely fit in there, so I know where you're coming from!
Hi Deborah,
I'm so glad you posted this picture! I have a very nice Nigerian that just freshened the 2nd time (for me) early Tuesday morning. She is very short and has huge teats. I had such a hard time emptying her udder during her last lactation that I bought full sized inflations for her. Of course, I can't use them because she is so low to the ground! I see that this post is from a while ago, do you still recommend the hole in the stand? Also, am I understanding that you use the larger inflations on all of your goats? That would really save me time. I was thinking that I would need to use both the mini and the full sized ones and am dreading the extra equipment washing I will have to do when my other two does freshen later this week.
Thanks! I'll show my hubby!
I have this machine. It works well, but there is a learning curve. Whoever milks the goats would still need to get a few squirts before hooking up the goat, and then you need to hand strip after they're done. There is also the risk of over-milking if someone doesn't know what they're doing. You do have to clean tubes, but they're only a couple feet long.
The biggest issue is that the belly pail does not fit under a Nigerian, so either you need to get longer tubes and set it on the floor next to the milk stand or something like that. My husband cut a square hole in the middle of our milk stand, and we set the bucket under it and pull up the inflations through the hole. The goats were completely freaked out by the hole, so we have to keep it covered to get them to jump on the stand, then once they start eating their grain, we remove the cover, hook 'em up, then put the cover back on the hole before they jump down.