For the past three months we have been milking our Jersey cow Noel. It has been a VERY interesting experience to say the least. Below are our top recommendations for beginner milkers out there. 

#1 Have the right stanchion setup. 

We started off milking Noel in the stall you see below, however, the bar we installed on the bottom did not detach and I couldn't milk her. So we put her out in our head catch where we brand and tag our cows outside. This worked for a while but I was eaten by flys and mosquitoes and really wanted to be back in the barn. 

Our wonder friends who live down the road sold us a 100 year old industrial milking station used for assembly line milking cows. This was a great idea, but it turned out, it wasn't strong enough to hold Noel so we had to think of plan "D." 

Brett was able to integrate the milking stall from our friends and our old milking setup he welded by using the head catch portion from one and the side rails from the other. So...