Milking in Winter

LoneStrChic23 · #21 10/01/11, 11:58 PM

LOL & here I am in West Texas wishing I could move north!

Only thing I do differently is use warm udder wash...... I like cold weather & tolerate it well considering all my years in this awful heat! When we stayed in Wyoming for a week one year I was the only one in my family not bundled up.....just jeans & a sweat shirt.....

Milking when it's 110° & your sweaty & the various bugs are eating you up is far worse to me than cold weather milking......plus I get a jump start on chilling the milk

tinknal · #22 10/02/11, 12:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heritagefarm

Milking is winter is pure torture. It is horrible, and makes me want throw the milk off a cliff. So does kidding and lambing in winter, too. Everything is frozen and dead and there is nothing to eat. The trees have no leaves, it is freezing and your hands get chapped beyond belief.
Can you tell I hate winter?

LOLOLOL!

You don't have "winter" Just a long Fall and an early Spring!

Land-o Goshen, man, grow some!

akane · #23 10/02/11, 04:13 AM

Quote:

WOW, sure glad you don`t live further North, cause it gets worse the farther you go. I have no idea why anyone would want to live in Canada, it`s gotta be durn cold up that far. Hehe

Actually if you are near the ocean it does not get that much colder the farther you go. The temps on the coast of alaska are hardly any worse than the temps in Iowa. Some people that my sister was friends with moved to Iowa from Alaska and said the only difference was whole hell of a lot of snow. We are far from any large body of water that would help stabilize the temp or provide a warm current. Washington which is the same latitude as Iowa hardly gets below freezing while we get to see -30F every year. Probably one reason you will find nearly all of canada's population on the east or west coast and straight north of us is pretty much nothingness. Cold nothingness.

kasilofhome · #24 10/02/11, 05:29 AM

I own up to milking by the woodstove the goats love to have nice warm water to drink so I put the kettle on for the girls as I go out to get them. It is going to be a bit more fun this year as it will mean 8 trips to get a goat in and 8 trips to return them. Chilling the milk quickly is not a issue when it is below minus 20 or 30 and the few days it's minus 40 well it almost icecream. The milker will stand nice to have the hoofs trimmed up in the winter --anything to prolong the return to the barn. I have found that neutragea hand ointment for fishermen works well in the winter for the utters.

nehimama · #25 10/02/11, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heritagefarm

Milking is winter is pure torture. It is horrible, and makes me want throw the milk off a cliff.

You got a cliff over there?

julieq · #26 10/02/11, 08:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by springvalley

WOW, sure glad you don`t live further North, cause it gets worse the farther you go. I have no idea why anyone would want to live in Canada, it`s gotta be durn cold up that far. Hehe . > Thanks Marc

To me it's not the cold so much during the winter, it's the wind. Here we get straight line winds that just freeze your eyeballs! Since we're on a high desert mesa there aren't any hills close by to stop it.

lonelyfarmgirl · #27 10/02/11, 08:41 AM

thats kind of my problem.one good thing though. when it hits 20 below, the wind generally stops.

tinknal · #28 10/02/11, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lonelyfarmgirl

thats kind of my problem.one good thing though. when it hits 20 below, the wind generally stops.

Heck, when it's 20 below you can't feel your hands and the goat can't feel her teats anyway.....

Pony · #29 10/02/11, 02:42 PM

Oh, HeritageFarm, I am so with you! Winter is teh suxorz, beyond a doubt.

BUT trying to look at the bright side:

In Winter...

Flies are pretty much non-existent.

Don't have to worry about chilling the milk quickly.

No sweating off my arms and into the milk pail.

There is a wonderful smell in the goat shed: warm hay, warm goat bodies, warm milkiness.

If you have a place out of the wind, snuggling into a warm goat can be a transcendent experience.

Lizza · #30 10/02/11, 02:54 PM

Here in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, we are warm and rainy, most days are in the 40's or 50's and then down to a little above freezing at night, most of winter. We do get below freezing and occasionally dip down into the teens for a week or two a year, or it will snow and ice will be on all the water in the morning but that is unusual. So milking here is nothing like milking in 20 below weather. I can't even imagine milking in the open that cold, we just have a three sided shelter, but we stay dry without wind, so it's totally fine. The mud is another matter entirely!

Heritagefarm · #31 10/02/11, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tinknal

LOLOLOL!

You don't have "winter" Just a long Fall and an early Spring!

Land-o Goshen, man, grow some!

Grow what, more fur?

Quote:

Originally Posted by KimM

I am so with you there. If it's below 45°, I'm uncomfortably cold. I'd love to move farther south.
When I milk in winter, I keep my udder wash and teat dip warm. After the final dip I wait 30 seconds and wipe it mostly off. Why can't they make a powdered teat dip?

Quote:

Originally Posted by springvalley

WOW, sure glad you don`t live further North, cause it gets worse the farther you go. I have no idea why anyone would want to live in Canada, it`s gotta be durn cold up that far. Hehe . > Thanks Marc

That's true, getting much colder would be quite bad for me, LOL!

Quote:

Originally Posted by nehimama

You got a cliff over there?

No, but some of our hills you can't walk down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pony

Oh, HeritageFarm, I am so with you! Winter is teh suxorz, beyond a doubt.

BUT trying to look at the bright side:

In Winter...

Flies are pretty much non-existent.

Don't have to worry about chilling the milk quickly.

No sweating off my arms and into the milk pail.

There is a wonderful smell in the goat shed: warm hay, warm goat bodies, warm milkiness.

If you have a place out of the wind, snuggling into a warm goat can be a transcendent experience.

That's true, there are some pluses, and actually I enjoy winter sometimes, and it sure makes spring a thousandfold better (aside from the tornados).
And, while I am sure to enjoy snuggling with a goat, the other side of my face is still going to get plastered with cold. A barn would help... A lot.

lonelyfarmgirl · #32 10/02/11, 07:25 PM

I have to agree with tinknal. you dont have real winter. however, if you dont like the cold, what winter you do get probably sucks for you.

jamjam · #33 10/02/11, 08:31 PM

Guess I'm one of the lucky ones. My big old dairy barn has a milk house attached to it. It is heated and has running water, hot an cold. My only problem is getting to the barn thru the snow drifts, minor discomfort when I add in all the pluses.

pookshollow · #34 10/02/11, 09:09 PM

I have to say I much prefer milking in the winter to milking in the heat of summer. It's just not nice being that close to a hot hairy goat when it's hot and humid! Not to mention the flies driving me and the goats crazy.

I usually end up taking my coat off to milk, so I'm just in a shirt and sweater - unless it's bitterly cold. I take hot water out for the udder wash and use that to warm up my hands if necessary. I don't use anything else on the udders - they don't seem to have a problem with chapping.

I'll need to start winterproofing the barn soon - plugging up all the gaps where the wind comes in. I do have running water, and heat tape for the pipes - not to mention the handy-dandy hair dryer for when the tap freezes up!

I was lucky the winter before last as I was able to use the hose in the barn almost all winter. Last winter, I think I had to put it away at the beginning of December.

Pony · #35 10/02/11, 10:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tinknal

LOLOLOL!

You don't have "winter" Just a long Fall and an early Spring!

Land-o Goshen, man, grow some!

Tinknal, I'm married to a 'Sota man, and if you ask him, he'll let you know that prairie winters are, in many ways, much worse than what's Up Nort'. The wind, the subzero temps, then the shift in temps, and the Giant Snow Snakes (drifts all over the barnyard) make MO Winter an event NOT for the faint of heart.

HeritageFarm is NOT being a whiner.

KrisD · #36 10/02/11, 11:27 PM

I milk in he garage with a space heater blowing on me. I hate being cold my joints just ache. When we lived in spokane it was freakin cold in the winter and we only had a 3 sided shelter, so i would freeze milk all summer long and then dry the girls up come Nov. I use udder butter on the goats and my hands and I use a hot water udder wash year round. When I get done milking I make myself a nice cup of hot cocoa with the warm fresh milk.

eclipchic · #37 10/03/11, 10:09 AM

I think last night I discovered a good way to warm up the teat dip.....we have a bottle warmer from my son as a baby that we never really used since he never really took to a bottle. Last night it worked like a dream getting the dip to a nice gentle warm temp and no flinching from Kissee

coso · #38 10/03/11, 10:18 AM

I like the winter better then the summer. Snuggle up next to the goat, don't have to worry about sweat dripping off your nose. Have to carry the wipes and teat dip back and forth but other then that I like it. I have five freshening end of January.

FunnyRiverFarm · #39 10/03/11, 04:53 PM

My milk room is the mud room in our basement so it never really gets below 50*F. I always make sure the doe's teats/udder are completely dry before I take them back outside. If the teats start to look dry or chapped I use chap guard udder cream on them. I also use the chap guard or lotion on my hands when they get too dry.

Heritagefarm · #40 10/04/11, 12:35 PM

Actually, what's even worse is milking during thunderstorms. Then you wonder if every time you go let another goat in, if that's the time you're going to get struck by lightning. Not to mention feeding the kids during that, with lightning crashing down within a mile of you, or the kind of flicker-flicker-flicker storms where you don't even need a flashlight.