Milking Stanchion Renovation

[Caitedid]

Hey all! Getting my first goat in a few weeks, a doe with a doe kid. Will be keeping the doe and milking her until November when she goes back to her home to get bred. I'll be raising up the doe kid to milk when she's old enough. Question is, our barn came with cow stanchions. Wondering if I can retrofit one of these to be used by goats? Think it would need a platform on the ground so that they would reach, and maybe some way to make the inside of the head stall narrower so that they can't just pull out. Any ideas? Thanks!

[Alice In TX/MO]

Would you post a picture of what you are starting with? That will help!

[Caitedid]

The ones I have look like this http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.stoneyacresfarm.com/images/C1144.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.stoneyacresfarm.com/index.php%3Fmain_page%3Dindex%26cPath%3D3&usg=__uG IYJpv3GEVkOaUQzrDLPA-aUAM=&h=120&w=90&sz=3&hl=en&start=22&sig2=ynz3o2wU nLWawdnqXGigxA&um=1&tbnid=OP_Ng3W_slMzkM:&tbnh=88& tbnw=66&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcow%2Bmilking%2Bstanchion%26ndsp%3D20 %26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-USfficial%26sa%3DN%26start%3D20%26um%3D1&ei=SV9_ SuCfEpDWNcL37IYD but they're still mounted in the barn with the concrete feed bunker behind. There were originally 16 stanchions, but the previous owner pulled 8 of them and they're stacked out back. My thought was to build a platform for goatleys to stand on to get them at a good height for everyone involved, and maybe rig the head catcher bit to be narrower, as a goat's neck is obviously thinner than a dairy cow's. Caite

[Alice In TX/MO]

Um, no. I don't think those will be useful at all.

Here's a link to a plan for building your own goat milk stand:
http://fiascofarm.com/goats/milkstand.html

Here's a pic of mine:

[billooo2]

I agree .......you would spend more time and effort trying to make the cow stantions work......and you still would not probably be happy with the results.