Eight Goats I'm Milking

"Eight goats I'm milking", yup, I'm singing the Christmas tune The Twelve Days of Christmas  -- well sort of.

I'm still living on little sleep and so when my neighbored called from North Dakota in a panic at milking time last night, said her nephew got hurt and couldn't milk her goats, I rolled up my sleeves and went to milking. Those four bum calves of hers needed something to eat.

And since goats don't care that you can't sing and singing can help keep you awake, especially when you change the words up a bit,  tunes started popping into my head. I just can't keep them to myself for they burst forth. I have a tendency to be annoying that way. 

Some day you've got to hear my I'm Dreaming of a White Bathtub  borrowed from the tune I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas -- or maybe not. It could be that just kids love it.

(Not sure this doe of my neighbors name. Oh well, I usually make on up anyway.)

So after I milked her four dairy goats and tricked her two Boer goat -- I stuck grain just outside the gate so that when they stuck their heads through to eat, I reached and grabbed their collar so I could haul them into the milk parlor-- then off I went to milk my two.

I thought myself pretty clever but the trick may not work twice to get those disagreeable two. But on the bright side, she's obviously drying them up. I didn't have to milk them again this morning as their bags were pretty empty, yeah!! Such is often the way with chores of neighbors. I ask a couple details like, "Are you still feeding the calves milk?' then I figure out the rest. Common sense says they need hay and water and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to discover which does need milked.

And since goats were on my mind all day yesterday since I had to miss the National Dairy Goat show in Loveland Colorado (tear, tear) (yesterday was the Nubian show that I was going to watch and help a friend show her goats at, sigh... ) I'll have to bring you an award winning udder.

Okay, maybe she hasn't won any udder contest but look at this beauty on our yearling named Megan. I've never had an udder this size on a yearling before. Can't wait to see it in another year.

Oh yeah, this is suppose to be educational. Okay, note the rounded arch of the escutcheon. That's the arch at the top. And the strong medial attachment. That's the line down the center of the udder that separates the two halves. The teats that hang straight down not too large or too small, just the right size. They could maybe be shifted a hair bit more toward the center of each half but not bad.

 Best of all lots of depth and width. In other words just plain big without tipping forward or some other crazy angle. Megan has a pretty fore udder also. That is where the udder attaches to the body in front of the udder.

Now off to fix lunch for my parents.