# Jersey Milk Cow



## JustinRobinsREO (Jan 2, 2013)

We just purchased our first milk cow. We've always had lamancha goats that we milked.

I'm having issues with her kicking everyonce in a while and she gets little specs of dirt in the milk.

Do you throw all that milk away if she kicks dirt or dirt falls off her into the milk?

I'm not talking alot just several small specs. 

I never had this issue with the goats.


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## mdstrong14 (Nov 23, 2015)

Strain it thru two cloth diapers or a coffee filter. Should keep all the dirt out.


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## spinningdog (Feb 10, 2014)

Put a cloth/filter over the pail you are using to milk into, that way the dirt never gets a chance to get in the milk.


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## Faith Farm (Dec 13, 2004)

Her occasional kicking could be from a sore teat, she may have flies or a sticker which irritates her, be sure inflators are a correct size. Just a few ideas.


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## Maxpowers (Apr 4, 2012)

When we milked by hand we milked into a 6 qt pail https://www.jefferspet.com/products/stainless-steel-pails

Then every couple of minutes we dumped into a bigger 2.5 gallon pail with a filter and funnel on top. This way if there was an incident we weren't potentially ruining the entire batch. The 2.5 gallon pail had a tight fitting lid which was nice for carrying it back to the house.

Personally, we would just dump any pails that she kicked up stuff into. The filter may keep the chunks out but it's not going to keep the bacteria out.

This is the big pail http://www.ebay.com/itm/262525306014?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

This is what the strainer looks like


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## BridgetMI (Aug 7, 2017)

I started hand milking a first freshener a couple of weeks ago. She, up until then, was a wild child. She still isn't halter broke. The first week I milked into a pint or quart jar (depending on your hand strength). It took a while, but no flecks in the milk. I would get up and dump the milk into a larger pail/jar as it filled. Be careful to not let the quantity of milk you end up with influence your decision of when you've milked her out. It will vary, and you need to determine if she's milked out by her body signs, not by the amount of milk she gives 

I then moved up to draping a cheesecloth (you'll want slack in the cloth) over a pail, and securing it with a rubber band. It works really well to keep the milk super clean. However, I would have a second container on hand in case she gets something really dirty onto the cloth, as you would not want to have your milk flowing over the dirt into the pail.

Happy milking!


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## Ober's (Jan 13, 2018)

Place feet Hobbles on her back feet only that way she can't lift her leg off the ground when milking ive used hobbles many of time when breaking milk cows to hand milk keeps you from getting the tare kick out of you lol


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