I’m welcoming back Kate from Venison for Dinner today as she wraps up her two-part series on milk cows that kick. I love these tips and have used several of them!
So now you’ve figured out WHY your cow is kicking…but what are you going to do about it?! Put these ten practical tricks to help the cow AND help you!
The first thing you must ALWAYS do, is calm yourself down. Without fail, if we are in a rush, feeling antsy, trying to hurry, she will be grumpy. I take a few breaths, and have even said out loud to the cow “Okay Will, we’re okay, it’s okay if you kick the bucket, I’m going to milk you out now, it’s okay if you milk the bucket.” And you know what? She didn’t kick the bucket after a long streak of kicking every time. You’re stressed = They’re stressed.
10 Tricks to Stop Your Milk Cow from Kicking
1. Use a kicker rope or kicker bar. This is my go to for a cow I know is consistently going to kick. I loop a thick rope around her tummy, in front of her udder and hips. It pulls tight to put firm pressure on in front of her hips which is a pressure point that slightly immobolizes them. I find it doesn’t stop them from kicking, but it makes her kicks slower and shortens her range of motion. I give this one with caution, because one time Marius pulled it too tight and the cow tried to kick and fell over. I’ve never had that happen, or heard of it happening otherwise, but it’s a possibility.
2. Have an extra bucket or pot to pour into. This is my insurance policy and personally, it calms ME down to know that I can easily grab away the bucket as it doesn’t have a whole lot of milk, AND if she does kick, I’m not losing the whole milking’s worth. If you’re dealing with a cow that’s unpredictable, then you don’t want to lose all your milk, keep a bucket or big pot within arms reach that you can pour milk into periodically. Depending on how antsy the cow is will determine how often I’m pouring, but make sure there is no more in the bucket that you can easily grab and pull away. More than a gallon for me gets to heavy for a quick snatch.
You can see in this picture that not only did we have to utilize the kicker rope, we had an extra bucket AND two people milking. This was the worst period of time we ever had with this cow due to a bout of almost mastitis. Despite that, she still was standing beautifully, both legs back, with only my Poppa holding her halter.
3. Milk Faster or Milk with two people . Sometimes you just need to learn to milk faster and get it done quicker. If one person can even just be taking care of one teat on the opposite side, it can make or break getting it done in ‘time’.
4. If you’ve just moved her, try to mimic her milking set up from before. While not always possible to mimic the set up from the previous farm, we found that putting a stanchion in (We got for free from fair grounds) helped calm the cow down. Our first cow just put her head through the two posts and we looped a rope around her neck, but Tilley, our second cow, got freaked out by that.
5. Milk with a small plastic bucket to minimize noise. We have these sturdy one gallon buckets that we keep for putting milk in if we run out of 2 qt mason jars. We found it really useful if the cow was scared of the bucket, to milk with one hand, holding the bucket up high in the other so that it made minimal noise.
6. Stand Differently. This applies to both you and the cow! It could mean you trying milking on the other side, or adjusting your expectations for how she stands. P’lady, our first cow, liked to stand with both feet even and back, which was a dream. Tilley and now Wilderness, prefer to stand with (looking from behind) their left foot forward and their right foot back. If your cow preferred the other way, don’t force it, just learn to milk from the other side.
7. Milk the teats in a different order. This sounds funny, but I used to milk both teats on one side (left hand on back, right hand on front) until they were done, then reach through to the other side. It worked great for P’lady and allowed two people to milk if need be. In our trying out different ways to calm Wilderness down, we found she prefers otherwise! For her, either milking both front, then both backs, or keeping a constant rotation going is what she likes best. This keeps the let down even all around, and has been successful for us!
8. Milk her from behind. Marius WILL NOT do this. I, personally, swear by it! I learned it from a friend who works at a small dairy cheese farm on the island, where we got our cows from, when he came and milked our cow for us. I stand beside her, NOT behind her, tuck her tail in between her udder and her leg, hold the bucket in one hand behind her, and milk straight backwards. I find this works best when she’s reached forward to get the grain she spilled and she wants to have her legs all the way forward. If you let her just get her grain and milk from behind, I find she stands perfectly still. I taught this to a few friends who relief milk the cow for me since they’re not as fast at milking. They have done so without incident so unless you know your cow is a ‘mean kicker’ I’d give it a try!
9. Get her Dominant Person to Milk. For our first cow, that was me. For our second and third, it’s Marius. You may not know this if you just bought the cow, but we found out pretty quick who the cow respects more.
(Stripping out the last drops, Excuse the muddy feet…spring time and all…it’s inevitable!)
10. If all else fails, milk onto the ground. This is a demoralizing thing to do, but the milk has to get out of the udder! I’ve had to finish off a cow simply squirting a few at a time onto the ground before quickly pulling away as she kicks. If you don’t milk her out, she’ll get blocked ducts or mastitis (maybe not that time, but another) she might need antibiotics and then you’ll have to give the milk to the chickens for a few days anyways. Short term pain=long term gain. This is another thing I tell relief milkers, that if they have to just squirt onto the ground, DO IT.
We learned these tricks through trial and LOTS of error, and I hope you’re able to put them to use! Got any others to add? I’d love to hear them in the comments below. Happy Milking!
Kate is a stay at home Mom of 2 little boys living a homemade life on the West Coast of British Columbia. She enjoys to cook and bake from scratch. Through hunting and homesteading, Kate and her family produce more than enough to fill their own meat and dairy needs, happily helping others start their own homesteading journey along the way. Kate also has a passion for home healing with natural medicine. You can follow along at www.venisonfordinner.com as she hones her homesteading skills, making her ‘whey’ through one mountain of raw milk at a time. Maybe you too will be inspired to butcher your own deer or try your hand at natural medicine!
Hi, I love your blogs, but occasionally things don’t really apply to me, but I still enjoy them Like this one for example. Maybe it’s because it’s 12:15AM and I haven’t had much sleep because of a bad toothache, but for some reason I saw the title of this blog and it just tickled me and made me laugh. I am a city girl, but have family that live on a farm so cows are not foreign to me. I just want to let you know that I thought I would post this on my wall and of course all of my friends will think that I’m crazy. I think it will be fun and they can all see the wonderful posts and pictures on your blog, and also give my friends a laugh since I don’t have cows. Thanks for your wonderful, informational blog.
Your comment made me giggle Elaine– I’m glad you are enjoying the posts, even when they might not apply! 🙂
I found that if you put two or three fist size or bigger rocks in the feed bin while milking, she will be concentrating on moving the rocks to get all of the feed.
Is there spray medicine for not kicks uo while milking, pliz suggest me
When I was in college I worked on a family dairy farm for room and board… one thing that helped prevent kickers was to start handling their teats from an early age… so we would wash/dry/dip the teats of the calves and heifers who had not freshened yet in the same way we did the milkers. That way a) they were already used to the process by the time they calved and b) their teats had a chance to become desensitized to touch…
Another thing we did was always make sure to warm our hands up… if I had some very cold dairy farmer’s hands on me first thing in the morning, I’d kick too (this was in Wisconsin, so you can imagine!).
In the four years I worked/lived there, we only had two “habitual kickers” in an 80 head herd.
I agree on the cold hands! We wash the udder with hot water before milking so our hands are nice and warm when we go to touch her udder. We’ve only bought cows after the first lactation, so we’ve never started from scratch with a cow, but where our cow is boarding at now, they have a heifer that we’re starting to train. We’re just about at the point of putting her in the stanchion and brushing her down/touching her udder. She’s been really nervous and so far we’ve just given her a couple handfuls of grain at milking time to get her into the habit of coming in.
I surprised myself just now when I realized I was already doing almost all of those things, except milking “from the back”. Guess I’m smarter than I realized! LOL
Thank you for posting. I truly enjoy reading your posts! 🙂
A couple questions since this is my first cow, I don’t know if she will be a kicker. It is her first calf and she is actually due today. I have been tieing her up and giving her some grain, then rubbing her belly and touching her udder to get her used to me. I do notice she will pick her leg up and brush her udder like she would if there was a fly on her. I also know cows can do this side kick, I don’t want to end up on the ground, since my face will be right down next to her belly is there a way to know if she will be ‘one of those cows’? Also, I plan on milking her just once in the morning and then letting her calf be with her the rest of the day, do I still need to completely empty her to reduce the risk of mastitis?
Tonya, I don’t think your cow will be a kicker going by what you said about her. Sounds like she is gentle and not wanting to hurt you just telling you to stop.
We actually do what you are planning to do with milking in the morning and letting the calf have the rest. You don’t have to take it all the calf will get it. Only right at first you will have to be watchful that the calf is nursing all the teats, if not you will need to milk them out.
Great post! 🙂 We have dairy goats and started with the minis but recently moved to a LARGE Nubian who likes to kick the bucket as well. Her previous owner said to milk her from behind, but I just couldn’t get the hang of that. What has worked for us is to use a dog leash to loop around one back leg/foot and then just tie it back slightly so that she can’t reach the bucket with that leg, and she’s too off balance to try and kick with the other. It’s been a milk saver for sure! 🙂 Hoping it’s a short term thing and she’ll learn good milk stand manners soon!
I just got my first milk cow, a 3 yr old mini jersey. Started kicking now that someone new is milking her! Is it possible to tie both back feet??
Just take it slow with her– you can also try the rope around the belly trick 🙂
I just wanted to comment about milking a cow out if the calf is on her getting the second milking done for you. If the calf is still little, I would milk that mama all the way out for a time, because a little calf can’t consume as much (even from the equivalent of only one milking) as that cow is producing. Sure, as the calf grows it will clean up what ever milk you didn’t get, but from my experience, not milking her out, and even emptying her at second milking time despite the calf being with her, will either lead to mastitis or a reduction in production, or both.
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Can you still buy hobbles somewhere? Once they are used to being milked you stop using them.
we would also sing to the cows. it was more of a droning hum and each cow was different. some responded to a lower hum others higher and some interrupted. we felt the cow out and it helped to clam them down a little alfalfa for them to chew on also distracted them a bit the point about cold hands is also true. we would warm ours by friction people dont realize that milk evaporating is the first law of refrigeration and cools your hands off. We also let the cow know we are coming we had one if startled wouldn’t give up her milk. many say this is imposable but I would tell them to try her and see. each cow had a personality and if used you got the milking done without incident. UGH! then the mucking. people would appreciate that glass of milk if they saw what we had to do to get it and to all you vegetarians out there a cow needs to have a calf every year to be able to deliver milk. what do you think happens to them? letting them all live would get very crowded.
Grampa
I know this is an old post but wish the photos showed up. Love seeing stuff visually and really enjoy the newsletter I get in my email box.
My mother-in-law taught me to milk. She always put the calf on the opposite side and she milked the other side. Worked beautifully.
Our go to is to “tail” then. We put them in grooming chute to milk. Grasp their tail at the base-closest to the cow and push it straight up toward their head. have someone hold it there while another milks.
I don’t see the pictures any idea why?
I used to sing to the cow. just a hum. but I would go up and down the scale I would lean my cheek up agent her I had one that no other could milk. she seemed to calm down when I sat down and hummed that non tune
Grampa
I use horse hobbles. They work very well. No kicking at all. If hobbles don’t stop her completely,hobble and then tie one hobbled back leg to a post behind. After a few weeks, nor more kicking a no more need for hobbles.
thanks for good information
Thanks for this informative content
I’m trying to do relief milking but she just isn’t cooperating, so how do I know if I’ve gotten enough out to really help?