Goats

Recently the Educational Director, Matt, turned 30. All the volunteers and interns at the farm were invited to his trailer that evening for a dinner celebration. To my surprise, instead of the normal topics one might discuss at an event (politics, spirituality, the arts, etc...), I found myself talking about the goats on the farm.

I have milked the goats three times since I have lived on the farm. All of those times felt like out-of-body experiences. Squeezing the teats and hearing the streams of milk hit the pail I'm thinking to myself, "How did I end up here?" Speaking of teats... Many people reading this might not be aware that the size of the teats varies from goat to goat. Some goats have enormous teats and others are not so well endowed. For the inexperienced milker, the small teats can cause mild anxiety. It is very hard to extract the milk from the small teat for obvious reasons - one can't get a good grip.

I realized the next morning I was scheduled for milking, so I decided the best way to overcome my issues with small teats was to glean some teat wisdom from the other interns and volunteers that were more experienced milkers. Some people claimed that removing the pointer finger from the grip and starting with the middle finger was the way to go. Others said that gripping very high up onto the udder was the solution. The next morning I approached the small teats with new-found wisdom and greater confidence. Although I still experienced some small teat awkwardness (STA), I did a more efficient job than I ever had before.

Taking care of goats is serious business and Jocelyn, the livestock intern, has my full respect. It seems to me that she is the hardest working woman on this farm. Recently, I had the pleasure of working with her on a rather difficult task: trimming the goats' hooves. And I thought milking small teats was hard! If you ever find yourself needing to trim goats' hooves here is a breakdown of how to do it:

1. Place the goat's hind leg in between your legs to hold it in place. (Your rear end faces the goat's rear end so you can bend over to closely examine the hoof.)

2. Scrape all compounded poop/hay/etc. off of the goat's hoof

3. Take clippers and cut through excess, overgrown hoof that is really thick and looks like really old man toenails

4. Take a break when you really get tired of the goat kicking you in the crotch (How do the men do this task? Perhaps there is a crotch kick avoidance technique I don't know about yet...)