Milking Male Goats (And Other Animal Lessons for 20-Somethings)
You might not be able to milk a male goat (unless you’re think of “milking” and then sure, but that’s not what I’m talking about), but that doesn’t mean male goats don’t have mad milking stats, and its one of the most important things about them. Managing a goat herd teaches you a lot of important life lessons, and this one centered around udder size and butter fat, and extrapolates to one of the solidest struggles of young adult life, that is that sometimes two negative genes equal a double-negative, grade-A emotional deficiency. Let me start with the goats.
Fun Fact: breeding goats is scientific, data-driven process that has very little too do with the Dirty. (In fact, the more expensive the goats, the less likely it is that they’ve ever actually done the act. Artificial insemination is a serious cock-block.) Milk production is obviously important in the goat world, and there’s two big indicators of quantity and quality of milk output; the size of the udder and the average daily weight of the milk. Yeah, followup fun fact, in the production world, gallons matter a lot less than pounds, because if you’ve got a goat that can deliver a few pints of hyper-rich, heavy milk, that means about the same as a goat that can deliver a gallon of watery 2% (not that any animal actually milks 2%, that’s processing). That means you can have a successful goat that has a small utter but delivers heavy milk, or a goat with a huge utter that milks lighter. Obviously a super goat with have both, but the kiss of death is having neither.
Thus when breeding season comes around and goat herders are on the prowl for the
perfect buck (male goat), the size and output of his mother’s udder, his past daughter’s udders, any female goat he’s related to, is vital information. If you have a herd full of small udders with high milk weights, you’re looking for a buck related to big udders and hopefully also higher milk weights. The risk of breeding your small udders to big udders/low milk weights is that, because of the magical randomness of genetics, you might end up with the dreaded small udder/low weight combination. This is what you need to know about goats.
My parents are not goats. Nor was there any data involved in their marriage. My parents are good stuff though, my heroes, wonderful people; smart, boring (but in the good, parent way), and they love us kids despite our childhoods, which makes them saints. The problem I’m talking about was nobodies fault, but it’s real. The problem of emotionally inheriting small udders and light milk.
My mom, for better or worse, can hold a grudge. If she feels like she’s been wronged, she can stay mad about it for a long time. Like marathon status. But that’s okay, because she’s also a pretty communicative person, and she’s not afraid of confrontation. If she feels like she’s been wronged, that person’s going to know about because she’s going to tell them straight up and want to work through it. My dad, on the other hand, is a gold-medal conflict avoider. And it usually works out for him, because stuff just falls off him like water, he rolls with punches like a professional boxer. My parents correct for their weaknesses like small udders full of rich milk, but sometimes I worry that I might be stuck on the cull list; small udder, weak milk, ie. grudge-holder, conflict-avoider.
The optimist in me says, “They found a work around, so will you.” I like to nod along with my internal optimist, but in the search of that work around, the real challenge is not being able to go to my parents for advice. For example, a recent awkward tension has developed in my housing situation, and it’s definitely the kind of thing I would usually ask my parents for advice about. But I know what they will say:
Mom: Just confront her, tell her how you feel, and figure out where the miscommunication is.
Me: Uhhhhh Moooom, I don’t want to confront her.
Dad: Just let it go for now, your lease is up in three months, just wait it out.
Me: Uhhhhh Daaaaaad, I can’t just let it go.
Now that I see it written out, both of these seem like not only good advice, but probably the only two options that exist. But neither of them feel like something I would/could actually do. There’s gotta be a third option out there, and it looks like I’m on my own to track it down.
So maybe I don’t have a big udder or heavy milk, but luckily, goats these days are good for a lot more than just milking. I could become a goat YouTube star by recording myself singing “I Knew You Were Trouble” by Taylor Swift (damn, I’m too late). I could learn to faint and become a standup comi-goat whose schtick is collapsing in full body paralysis when startled throughout the show. I’m sure I’ll figure something out. What I do know is I’m getting to a weird part of life where my parents’ life experience is diverting from mine. Luckily, emotional habits aren’t quite as predetermined as udder size. Alright, I’ll stop milking this metaphor now.
