Anyone out there with a precocious milker? I want my doe to dry up for the winter, have stopped milking her about a week ago; she had dropped milk production to about a cup per day. She has a pretty full bag, and I'm wondering if I milk her now will she just keep producing? I want to leave town next month, and it's hard to find anyone here who will come over for 10 minutes and milk.
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Once a goat is down to a cup a day, you can just stop milking her, and she'll be fine. Her body will eventually reabsorb the milk. If you really want to milk her ONE time after a week or ten days, you can, but it is usually not necessary if she was only producing a cup a day. Of the dozens of goats we've dried up over the years, I can only think of one that got an udder big enough that lasted for a couple weeks that caused us to decide to milk her -- and we just did it once, and her udder started to shrink after that. And generally we don't dry up any of them until they're down to about a cup a day. If a goat is producing a quart or more a day, then it may not be so easy.
You are in a pickle! I would think that if you milk her she is going to just produce more. That would be the norm, but if you want to leave town and can't get a milker it would probably be best to let her dry up. If you want to dry her up and she is dangerously full the best thing to do is to just milk her a little to let the pressure off, and she will eventually stop making milk. Wish I had that problem!