Besides me, which I hated doing, by the way, how many of you have ever milked a cow? By hand or machine? How about a goat?
I have milked a cow. Not often but I have done it. It's easy. All you have to do is bump gently then squeeze and tug. Or maybe that should be, "Tug and squeeze." And the milk comes pouring out! No goat.
I milked a goat for one whole season. My hands would always start to cramp up about half way through. The goat was very sweet and cooperative, but I still didn't like it.
Our goat was nasty. She'd kick and butt. I don't think a drop of goat's milk ever made it into the house due to my efforts. I'm pretty sure everyone was watching from the window, so I probably provided them with some entertainment, since I was never in trouble for having lost the milk. The cows were easy.
I think a goat is harder to milk. The teats on a goat are smaller than a cow, and if your fingers are long it's tricky to get a good grip. I was taught tugging is a no-no, and not necessary. You just squeeze the milk out, top to bottom.
I have milked both cows and goats. I think that the cow does a better job of standing placidly to be milked, at least better than the milk goats that I have had did. I much prefer the taste of fresh cow’s milk, and goat milk is a lot more apt to take on flavors of what the goat eats. Not helping that at all, is the fact that goats are similar to deer in their eating habits, and they like to eat leaves and twigs and things like rose bushes and berry bushes, whereas most cows are content to have grass or alfalfa hay, and don’t try to climb the apple tree to get the little tender branches near the top (picture that in your mind !). Goats are much shorter, so I had a milking stand for milking the goats, and it had a place to lock their head in , similar to the ones for milk cows have. The goat was usually happy to stand as long as they were eating their grain, but for whatever reason, they always thought that they needed to GOBBLE the grain as fast as they could eat, and when they finished, then they would stomp and kick the bucket over, and pesky little things like that. The milk cow happily stood there, slowly munching her grain, and didn’t care how long it took me to milk her. As far as milking itself, either one was pretty easy. I washed the udder, put some bag balm on my hands, and massaged it into the udder, and then just started at the top and slid my hands/fingers down, squirting out the milk as I did that. So, it was not any hard squeezing, and very easy to do. My favorite was definitely my dear milk cow, affectionately named “Cow Patty”, and she was a cross between a guernsey milk cow and some Hereford mixed in. We bred her back to a Hereford, so we had a calf that was a beef calf as opposed to a milk calf. (We named him “Bull Pucky”) In the winter time, I would put one of the horse blankets on Cow Patty to keep her dry and warm, because western Washington winters are cold and wet, and sometimes ice storms. At night, she slept in the warm barn, of course. Sometimes, I really miss having a milk cow or goat, but I know that it would be hard for me to milk one anymore, even supposing that I could keep one out in the back yard.
I never milked a cow and for a long time didn't know that goats could be milked. In my elementary school years a lot of field trips were to particular places that had farm animals. It smelled so bad that it made me gag and nauseous.
Maybe it was because I grew up on a farm and had to shovel the stuff, but I didn't find the smell of cow or horse manure to be so revolting. I didn't feel that way about chicken crap though. I hated cleaning up after chickens. Yes, the cows were easy to milk, I think because they wanted to be milked. The goat, on the other hand, always seemed to think that I was invading her space. "Hey! That's mine! Leave it alone!" "What are you doing down there?" "Stop it!"
At age 5, I went out to help a great uncle milk his cows. After being set up with a T-stool and a bucket I turned and ask him, "Where do you turn it on." The old folks in the house had a good laugh when they were told about that. At 64, I learned to milk my daughter's goats.
Nope! But, would definitely take care of dairy cows or beef cattle before taking care of hogs...…...like I did. To a point, I really enjoyed farming when I was in high school, but sure wasn't going to become a full-time farmer. Taking care of a couple of horses was plenty of work for me in my 30's.