Being able to secure your cow while milking is one of those unique homestead pleasures that you don't really appreciate until you have to try to do without. I've tried milking out in the field, and while that 3 oz of fresh milk was delicious it was a far cry from being anything that I wanted to attempt on a larger scale! That's why when we made the leap to in house homestead dairy production one of the first things I did was build a stanchion. We wanted to be able to move it (since we don't have a permanent milking parlor yet), and since our stanchion was going to be restraining 1000 lb animals it had to be sturdy. This is the first installment on building the heart of your new stanchion the headgate....