# Alternative to a pulse milker



## liz (Oct 5, 2007)

I have a FF here with everything right with her udder except she has small teats... the kind where it's really hard to start milking her after more than an 8 hour fill.
Her udder however is very soft textured so I would start "milking" by placing my hands above her teat and applying gentle pressure to get a stream, good that she has large orifices  Once softened a bit I was able to milk her out by encircling above her teat on her udder with my thumb and forfinger... she was giving me 5 cups 2x a day.
The idea came to me and my empty pocket that an electric breast pump for human moms might work, it has a pulse and the suction is gentle. 

I opted to go for the better quality, more expensive Medela breast pump as I had done some research on all the electric brands like Playtex, Evenflo etc. I had a friend donate her brand new First Years dual pump and tried it but the suction was not powerful enough so I currently have this setting here, tried once 
I found a Medela on my local Craigslist for $25... it was used for a year but it came with unopened microwave sterilizing bags to be able to sanitize the parts.
This thing works great! And... Foxy never flinched as I switched it on or attached it, seemed like she actually enjoyed it too. Only drawback I find with this is that though it is a double pump, I can adapt it to work both sides at once but haven't yet and I switched to a 9 oz baby bottle as the shells are made to attach to a baby bottle, I had to stop and dump the milk into my pail 3x per side. Foxy's a patient doe though 
It came with cone inserts that fit inside the larger shell for moms with smaller nipples and because my does teats would grow longer as she was emptied, I found it neccesary to adapt these inserts to her by taking a silicone nipple from a baby bottle, cutting the tip off about half ways and inserting the tube end of the insert into the base of the nipple, the silicone made an airtight seal in the larger shell and extended the insert above the shell, this allowed me to be able to milk my doe down to just finishing and emptying her by hand for a few squirts.
IMO... This is a much better way to "machine" milk... the constant suction ones that have become popular are not good for teat health.
I do eventually want to have a Simple Pulse to have on hand should I need to have someone else milk or just in case my hands quit working 
I've attached pics of how I adapted the smaller shell extension to fit my doe, the large shell did work out when she was very full but as mentioned above, as she was emptied her teats would get longer, touching the bottom of the assembly and blocking milk flow... the extension kept this from happening.


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## ksalvagno (Oct 6, 2009)

That is great that you found a solution that works for you.


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## NoahEm (Sep 19, 2013)

I have been using mine too! It works great... And like you said my doe seems to enjoy it  i need to get the 9oz bottles to attach. I have the smaller ones and have to empty them a bunch. It seems to work wonderfully though!! 

Thanks for the photos! I am going to try that and order some of the smaller shield things! Because I do have trouble getting my doe completely empty.....so glad I am getting more use out of this thing! 

Sent from my iPhone using Goat Forum


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## liz (Oct 5, 2007)

I think most drug stores will carry the small inserts


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## J.O.Y. Farm (Jan 10, 2012)

That is real nifty Liz!


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