We are getting a new Jersey!

LaurieLovesLearning

Ah, the life of hand milking the Jersey.   We have missed that in the past 2 years, but hoping the Jersey calf is pregnant now.   He mother was a kicker, a foot in the bucket and a dancer.  It just depended on what time of day, the weather and the bugs. LOL

I had to engineer and design a milk shoot just for us to milk a cow by hand to prevent the kicks and bucket smashing.   It even had to have a roof to keep the rain off and the hot sun off the cow and us.

There are the 'no-kick hip clamp' thing, the leg bungee straps and the 'kick board'.   We've used the 2 latter ones with success.

LaurieLovesLearning

Rose had never been handmilked. She only sort of kicked once at her second milking. Fidgeted a little at the start because everything was so new to her. Now she is perfect. No kicks, no fidgeting, no poop nor pee while milking, keeping quite clean, and she leads well.

The milk is enough for us. She is not a huge milker yet, but this was only her first calf. Her cream is plenty; the butter is good and hard.

Overall, we are very pleased with her and have no complaints.

Bmaverick, I would be interested in seeing a picture of your fancy chute if you have one. Keeping the rain & sun off is always a good thing.

With our first cow, we tied her head between two trees and nailed a board to a third tree so that she couldn't move too far to one side. It worked well until it rained. So then we added a tarp. We had to build a basic square bale shelter before winter.