While many commercial dairy goats are milked by milking machines and pumps, there are still many people who milk goats the old fashioned way (by hand). Some people are surprised to find out that milking a goat by hand isn’t as easy as just squeezing the utters into a bucket. In today’s article, we will show the best way to milk a goat by hand.
How to Milk a Goat by Hand
Here is a step by step guide on how to milk a goat by hand:
- Put the goat in place
Start by tying the goat up or puttings its head through a dairy station so that your goat remains still during the milking process.
- Wash the udder
Start by washing the udder with a clean warm towel and warm water. We don’t recommend putting on soap, because it can actually dry the udder. Cleaning the udder in the beginning is very important because it removes the bacteria that is on the surface of the udder and teats. Washing with warm water also helps stimulate the udder to release more milk. After washing the udder, you should dry it off so that the bacteria doesn’t flow down to the teats.
- First squirt
The first squirt usually contains a lot of bacteria, so we recommend squirting the first pinch away from the bucket and onto the ground.
- How to squeeze a goat’s teats
The best technique to squeeze a goat’s is by pinch the top of the teat with your thumb and pointer finger. Then, squeeze the rest of the teat with your remaining fingers. This will cause the milk to shoot out. Make sure that you are only squeezing the teats and not the udder. We recommend alternating each side between squirts in order to get the most amount of milk.
- Massaging the udder
When the stream of milk first starts to slow down, you should stop and start massaging the udder. You can also give it a couple gentle slaps. This will help generate some more milk.
- Squeeze until the last drop
It is important that you get all the milk out of the udder. If you leave some inside, then the next time your goat won’t produce as much milk because its body will think that it already produced enough milk for the kids.
What to do if a goat is kicking when you are trying to milk it?
If your goat is kicking a lot, gently squeeze the tendon that is located just above the knee. This will make it physically impossible for your goat to kick. After holding the tendon a couple times, your goat will realize that there is no point in trying to kick.
