Why won't she get on the milking stand?

[Zookeeper]

Our doe has been refusing to hop up onto her milking stand for the past few days??? Before that she'd run to it, you couldn't keep up with her.

I thought maybe she's getting too much grain and not motivated by the grain at milking (I give her some in the afternoons since I am only milking her in the mornings, and she has twins nursing the rest of the day...so she can keep up her milk supply...) so I cut down on that but she still doesn't get up there.

She'll still let me milk her if I leave her on the ground...just will not get on that stand. We picked her up and put her on it once but when I'm by myself I can't do that.


ANY ideas???

[dkdairygoats]

Did something scare her last time she was on the stand? If you do anything like hoof trimming, giving shots, etc. on it sometimes they will start to hate the stand. Did she fall last time or slip trying to get up on it? Is her udder painful? For some reason she must be associating the stand with bad things.

[Zookeeper]

She did have a small cyst of some sort (like a big zit) for a few days on one of her teats which was painful. I would milk her and then massage it, etc. and then one day it came to a head and I expelled what I could from it, now it's gone. But it did seem to bother her, so maybe that's it...hadn't thought about it.

Think if DH and I get her up there a couple of times and she sees everything is okay, that's all it will take?

I hope that's it, that should be easy to fix!

[dkdairygoats]

Usually they get over it in a couple days. Some are more sensitive than others..I have some that I can trim hooves on up there and another that if I give her a shot, she won't come out for week.