# Milking times



## keren (Oct 26, 2008)

Okay, so I know you should try to milk 12 hrs apart and I have been trying for 8am and 8pm. 

But just wondering how strictly you need to follow this, whether it is forgivable to go earlier or later every once in a while.


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## goathappy (Oct 5, 2007)

We milk at 8am and 7 pm in the winter, 7am and 6:30pm in the summer, you don't have to do exactly 12 hours inbetween but it helps to do as close to it as you can.


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## liz (Oct 5, 2007)

I need to coincide with my work schedule so I usually do 4 30 am and 4 30 pm.... now on weekends I do switch it up because I don't need to be up on Sundays til 6am so I will milk closer to 5 am on Saturday and the evening milking will be 5 30 so it is just beyond that when I milk Sunday morning......and my days off I certainl;y don't want to be up at 4am, so the night before I'll strip out my does around 9 pm...which does put them at 3x a day for that day.....doing this has never caused a problem at all with my girls.


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## Pam B (Oct 15, 2007)

I shoot for 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. Works fine in the summer time, but when the days get shorter it's a pain to be milking in the cold and dark at night. Then again, I go to once a day milking at the beginning of Dec and have the preggy girls all dried off by the end of Feb, so I don't have too long a period where I am milking at night in the winter.


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## Cinder (Mar 3, 2008)

I milk pretty close to 8:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. If I'm off by 1/2 hour I've never seen a problem. I try to never milk more than an hour and 15 minutes apart though. If I know that I am going to be gone for a milking I adjust the time in 15 minute increments over several days before and after.

Just a suggestion for night time milking... I got one of those headlamps from Walmart (about $12) and it's been wonderful to use. My hands are totally free and I can see in a completely dark barn (we don't have lights out there). We have set up construction lights by the milk stand now and that has been extra wonderful as they give tons of light. But, that's a different part of the barn from the stalls so the headlamp gets the does to and from the milk stand.


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## RunAround (Feb 17, 2008)

Well I'm bad. I milk some of my girls only once a day, but thats once they are at least 3 months into their freshening and they are fine with that. Since I am going to be on milk test this year I wont be able to do that. I am going to have to try and do the 12 hour schedule. Darn... I liked sleeping in.  :coffee2:


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## K-Ro (Oct 14, 2007)

Well I try to milk at 8am and then again around 5pm, now when daylight savings time is here I milk around 8pm. On Sunday mornings it can be 11am before I get to them. On basketball or karate days I will milk as early as 4pm. They are really forgiving creatures and I have not lost any milk production either.


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## Pam B (Oct 15, 2007)

Cinder said:


> IJust a suggestion for night time milking... I got one of those headlamps from Walmart (about $12) and it's been wonderful to use. My hands are totally free and I can see in a completely dark barn (we don't have lights out there). We have set up construction lights by the milk stand now and that has been extra wonderful as they give tons of light. But, that's a different part of the barn from the stalls so the headlamp gets the does to and from the milk stand.


We don't have electricity to our barn and it is about 400 feet away from the nearest power source so running an extension cord out there is not really practical. I've gotten real creative on getting light out there for my night chores. I started out with a small Makita flashlight with rechargeable battery and two batteries. Now I've got a Makita lithium-ion flashlight with the adjustable head. I set it on a storage box with the light pointed at the ceiling, which bounces the light around my 8'x8' milking area brightly enough to see fairly well. I can get about 2 1/2 nights of milking and chores out of one battery charge. The batteries charge in just a few minutes so if I forget to charge my second battery and the one in my light runs out I can run in and charge it and get back out to work fairly quickly.

Hubby has promised me electricity and lights in that barn for several years now, even going so far as to buy the wire to go underground from the power pole by the house out there, and having our youngest son dig the trench for the wire to go into. Said son only got about halfway across the yard, though, before heading off to his summer job at a camp in another state two years ago and nothing else has been done on it since. In fact, we still have about 50' of open 18" deep and 1' wide trench across our back yard that I constantly worry about someone falling in and breaking a leg. But that's a whole 'nother story!!! :scratch:


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## fcnubian (Oct 23, 2007)

When I was milking, I milked the girls at 6-6:30 AM and PM.


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## grandmajo (Oct 14, 2008)

I milk at 7am and 7pm, as closely as possible. On Sunday nights and Wednesday nights we have church, so milking is closer to 6:15pm. 

Pam B, I'm feeling really blessed, my hubby just finished the goat barn after Christmas, and he ran a temporary line out so I've got lights and outlets. LOL, he said it was going to be the goat Taj-Mahal.


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## Pam B (Oct 15, 2007)

grandmajo said:


> Pam B, I'm feeling really blessed, my hubby just finished the goat barn after Christmas, and he ran a temporary line out so I've got lights and outlets. LOL, he said it was going to be the goat Taj-Mahal.


Maybe my goats should move south a few miles. :wink:


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## liz (Oct 5, 2007)

The very early am and later at night milkings are much easier now that DH has permaqnent power in my barn...he went all out and I have outlets as wll as switches for the lighting in each of the 3 areas so at kidding time I can have the light on where the kidding stalls are and the other does aren't disturbed and the bucks only hear whats going on...he even has it so that my fencer can be plugged into the outlet that the moniter is on and theres no worry of shutting off switches and them losing power...great thing and I feel very blessed to have power out there....now to just get him moving on getting it all connected with the underground conduit and digging the trench! It's all powered by a heavy duty extension cord run out my back door!


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