Milking questions

[Momof8kiddoes]

Hi everyone, hope you all are having a good weekend.
I have a question on milking out. Ive read to make sure to 'strip out' the cow, so as not to get mastitis. Not sure exactly 'how' to though.
Seems as Im milking, she has a few let downs..does that make sense?
Then, toward what I think is the end of milking...seems like no matter how much I milk, I can still get out a couple more squirts. Feels like I could sit there all day 'stripping'.
So, how do I know when Ive gotten it all, or at least enough?
Mary F.
PS One other question...every once in a while, she will 'plop' while I milk her...always wonder...does she do this on purpose? Two times I recall her doing this, I was late by about 30min in milking her..so I do wonder if she is mad that I was late...lol...do cows get mad, and at such things as this?

[OD]

I have always had trouble getting my cow stripped out. Actually, I'm beginning to think it's impossible. It's like she is making more as fast as I milk it out. So now, when the flow gets really slow, I just strip all four teats & go to the house. She hasn't had mastitis from it yet.

[Haggis]

I get either "rain from a low cloud" or "garden grow" every time I wash my Dorsey's udder. I could count on one hand the number of times she hasn't made a "donation" while she was milked. On the other hand, Lucy very rarely drops her load while being milked.

On stripping out a cow; when I was a boy, our grade Jersey and Guernsey cows didn't give a lot of milk, so they could be easily stipped dry. On the dairy farm where I worked as a teenager the Holsteins seemed to made milk faster than the machine could pull it out. Both the Jerseys I'm milking just now are nigh on to impossible to strip dry, I just pull them down to "good enough" and like OD says, I haven't had a problem.

[Christina R.]

Someone told me to massage the udder while I'm stripping her, this helped more than the regular stripping I was doing, but there always seems to be a trickle. I've (or should I say Corabelle) has never had mastitis problems. Glad you're all set up and milking away!!!

[pekin84]

As someone who is just learning about cows, and also a nursing mother of multiple babies of my own, and a La Leche League Leader -- I am struck by the similarities. The human breast is a milk maker, not a milk container. A baby who is dozing and nursing for an hour can cause multiple let downs. Two thirds of what baby gets is made during that feeding. It's an amazing process.

Polly

[jerzeygurl]

Originally Posted by OD

I have always had trouble getting my cow stripped out. Actually, I'm beginning to think it's impossible. It's like she is making more as fast as I milk it out. So now, when the flow gets really slow, I just strip all four teats & go to the house. She hasn't had mastitis from it yet.

yep exacery

[cloverfarm]

I thought manuring during milking *could* be rather a compliment. As in the cow feels so relaxed ... kind of like the cat bringing us dead mice. An exquisite compliment in their view