Kow Kan't Kick

Milking a cow that has never been milked is always a wild card.  You just don't know how things are going to go.  Maggie has been difficult to milk due to her really small teats in the back and the fact that she moves around a lot and kicks.  Our other cows have kicked, but they're generally not a kick meant to hurt you, but one to just push you away.  Maggie's kicks are more forceful and one I don't want to be on the receiving end of.

We figured that we'd better do something about that before someone gets hurt.  We ordered a product called Kow Kan't Kick.  Kow Kan't Kick looks like some kind of a Medieval torture device, but it doesn't hurt the cow at all.

Kow Kan't Kick

The first thing you want to do is put some sort of a cushion on Maggie's back.  The apparatus may hurt her if it rests on her backbone with no cushion.

Cushion for Maggie's backbone

Then you position it right in front of the cow's pin bones and angling back to where the ends are right about where her "arm pits" are.

Positioning the ends in place 

Now while holding it in place, you start turning the crank to tighten it up.  The crank causes the bottom part to tighten up.

Tightening down on the device

You can see how tightening is starting to lightly pinch the cow on the very bottom.  This doesn't hurt the cow, it merely compresses the muscles the cow uses to lift her leg and kick, rendering her unable to do so.

It is time to try it out to see if she'll be able to lift her leg and kick when I start milking her.

Getting the milking bucket in place

Other than not wanting to get kicked while I'm milking, the other thing I'm trying to avoid is having her kick over the bucket full of milk.  After spending time and energy milking her the last thing you want to happen is for her to kick the bucket, tip it over, and lose all the fresh milk on the ground.  There is an old saying that "You can't cry over spilled milk."  Let me tell you that after milking a cow, if she kicks the bucket over, you feel like crying!

I'm here to tell you that the Kow Kan't Kick device works and works perfectly.  I was able to milk Maggie without her lifting her leg or kicking at all.

Success!!

We finished in no time and Tricia began loosening up the crank to pull it off of her.  We were very pleased with this purchase and plan on continuing to use it.

One other interesting thing that I wanted to show you about Maggie is something on her bag.  You can easily see that the front teats are longer than the back ones.  It was difficult to milk her back teats at first, but now that her bag is not swollen due to giving birth, it is easier to milk her.  

The other think is that if you look between her front and back teats, you can see a little "button."  When Maggie was born, she actually had 5 teats.  It looked odd and I did some research on it and found that this is not uncommon and that the fifth teat is not connected to any milk gland and should be clipped off with some sharp clippers as soon as possible and that is what I did.  It didn't hurt her at all and I just dabbed some petroleum jelly mixed with iodine on the location and it healed up nicely.

Can you see where Maggie's fifth teat used to be?

Now that we've gotten Kow Kan't Kick to help us milk Maggie, we'll begin using it and will start milking her in the morning just like we do with Daisy and Rosie.