So my nuggets are 6 months old now, and still sucking on mom after I put them all together in the morning. I also did an experiment by leaving them together all night, just to see how big a dent would happen, and my mommy's gave me next to nothing next day. I was wondering how long they will continue to drink from mom? Will they still be sucking on them after I knock them up next year? Just wondering what to expect and if this is normal or if I have a bunch of separation anxiety nuggets LOL. Thanks.
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Like pretty much everything with goats, the answer is, "It depends!" It varies from kid to kid as far as when they wean. Murphy's Law is usually fully functioning here, so if you want them to stop, they don't, and if you don't want them to stop, they do! A few years ago we went to do milk test, and that was when I learned that my daughter has not been milking any of the does that had one kid ... those does had next to no milk, so obviously their kids were not nursing much at all. They were 6-8 months old at that time. I've had some kids that never nursed again after a sibling was sold, even if they were only 3 months old. I've also had doelings that were still nursing at 18 months the year that I retired their mothers. We had one doe that had been separated from her mother for a couple of months because it was kidding season, and she herself had kidded, and when they were all put back together, she immediately ran to her mother and tried to nurse, but her mother was now nursing new babies and would have nothing to do with her yearling trying to nurse. About 99% of kids will stop nursing at some point when their mother gets pregnant. That has always happened here, but once in a blue moon, I hear from someone who has a doe that is nursing new kids and an older one.