anyone familiar with training a 1st calf heifer to stand for hand milking, without getting kicked into the next county? She is very docile now, brown swiss/with a little jersey. always bought milk cows already trained.
You can put some clamps on the rear legs to prevent kicking. Some people also use a clamp to tie the tail up.
Otherwise just start with the intention of moving quickly. The cows usually settle down in a short time exspecially if they are given ground oats or barley at milking time.
It's been a long, long time ago, but I had some experience along those lines when I was a kid. I think the best way is to just get the heifer accustomed to being touched, stroked, etc. before she comes "fresh". In other words, touch, handle, wash, pretend to milk, and such things in advance.
When I was a kid, I thought the "kickers" (the clamps mentioned by Egon) were a great idea and I sure did want to get some, but my Dad promptly vetoed that idea. Now I can't say whether he was right or not, but I suspect he was, when he said if you ever start using those things, you'll have to use them from now on, every time you milk that cow. Instead, he said you break her of kicking.
Now of course his idea of "breaking" her of kicking was to try to gentle her, as I mentioned above, but then when he actually started milking, if she kicked, so did he. I believe he could kick a cow under the belly with those clodhoppers of his hard enough to almost lift her off the ground. [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]
Thanks, already been touching, pretend milking, etc. This may work, maybe I remember more from my youth than I thought. It's been a real long time. At my age you'd think I would know better, just go to the store and buy milk. and eggs,and lamb,and beef. But it don't taste near as good! thanks again, see ya
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