My new milk stand

Wags · #1 05/28/08, 08:04 PM

I built this today from plans by Scrounger. (Thanks for sharing them Scrounger!) The plans are for full size goats, and mine are Nigerians, so I dropped the height of the middle cross pieces down to 12" and made the cut out for the head a little smaller. Otherwise the plan is unchanged. I will probably make a few tweaks to it as I go along.

Overall it took me about 4 hours to build - which included the time it took me to scrounge the pieces around our place. Only thing I bought was the bolt/nut and the hook & eye.

whinnyninny · #2 05/28/08, 08:11 PM

Looks good!

We built one the other day using the instructions from Fias Co Farm... it only took us 2 hours or so. I'm surprised it went together so fast!

Wags · #3 05/28/08, 08:15 PM

I have their plans too - but Scroungers were for 2x4's and I knew I had a lot of little lengths laying around.

Scrounger · #4 05/28/08, 09:05 PM

I'm glad someone got some use out of them! Looks like a fine job!

Wags · #5 05/29/08, 09:49 AM

After having a go at milking this morning these are the modifications I would make to the plan for Nigerians or other miniature goats:

- Make the platform 4 inches narrower. So it would be 20x48" That still leaves a lot of room and you could go down to 16" x 36" if you were short on space.
- 3 inches shorter in overall height. So 18" legs instead of 21"
- top of the middle bar could be dropped a bit more depending on the size of your goats. The top of mine is 12" off the platform, and that is almost too high. Measure your goats to the bottom of their necks to get an idea where yours should be set at.

I like the 48" length of the platform as it allows me to sit and milk from behind. A narrower platform would make it more comfortable for me to straddle it. And shorter would make it easier for my does to get up on it, plus then more than my toes would touch the ground when I'm seated.

The height will be remedied this afternoon, but I'm not going to take it apart to mess with the width. Of course the 21" legs does make it easier to get at feet for trimming - but I figure I will do more milking than trimming.