"United we bargain, divided we beg."

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Flopsy Update #3

Hooray! Finally, this morning, I got all the milk out of Flopsy's right side (not left, as previously, erroneously written). Along with the milk came several incredibly icky clots of hardened milk. I would milk for a while, then a clot would plug up the orifice and I'd have to work at getting it out while the poor goat hollered and kicked. I am still being very gentle, but I'm sure it hurts. 


I did manage to milk her all out this morning. There are definitely more clots in the teat, but the mass has broken up, it's not solid anymore. Now it's as though her teat is full of gravel. I know I'm supposed to be doing this every couple of hours, but how? I'm working today. I could ask Homero but......

The good news is, the goat seems fine. No fever anymore, and she is eating with normal goatish relish. The heat is getting to everybody, though, and everyone is spending most of their time lying down in whatever patch of shade they can find. It's going to get up to nearly one hundred today! I wonder if that's EVER happened before in this area! Not lately. 

The little bucklings are sore throated from yelling for two days now. They just can't believe I'm not going to put them back in with their mothers. I feel for them, I really do. But I can't believe how much milk I'm getting from Iris now that I've pulled her baby off her! A gallon a day, easy. 
I don't really need another milk goat at all with her around. 

Better make cheese.

1 comments:

Tonia said...

Yeah so glad you got it moving.. Just keep at it and she will do better!!