I'm looking to buy some more goats and I often see does that have one side of their udder bigger than the other - I assume they had a kid who preferred one side. Is this possible to correct by milking out the smaller side more regularly or something? I'm wondering is it worth buying a doe like that........
Thanks for any advice
Katharine
Replies
My Summer was very lopsided from two years of triplets. The first year, I didn't milk that much from her. However, her second freshening I started milking at four months after her kids went to their new home. When she gave me over a quart that evening, I decided I was absolutely going to milk her! By milking her completely dry each time, eventually, the sides evened up again. It is not always easy being that diligent but it will correct if you are.
In this photo, you cannot see as well as if I had planned the photo since it's taken from slightly different angles and she is unshaven but it clearly shows how out-of-balance she was originally. It shows how she evened out from August to January. She went on from the January 2015 photo period to continue milking equally from both sides and continued to until I dried her up that winter. This was her first freshening (April 2013) and second freshening (April 2014).
You asked about taping a teat. Honestly, I would not bother; just milk her dry twice a day and time and diligence will fix it. What baby(ies) don't take, you will which will keep up production.
Udder-May-2013-Jan-2015.jpg
If one side has dried up, there is nothing you can do during this lactation to make it start producing again. However, in future lactations, both sides should work, assuming the doe did not have mastitis in one side that created a lot of scar tissue.
If a doe only has one kid, we start milking her on day one. After about six hours, I milk her out completely and freeze the colostrum in 4 ounce ziploc baggies with the date so that they can be used in the future if we have a doe that has five kids or something like that. Then we milk her out completely twice a day. Basically I'm the twin that wasn't born. If you don't do that, you'll wind up with a fat kid and a doe that doesn't have great production, even if the kid nurses on both sides. It's all about supply and demand. If you don't want to milk twice a day, then you can put the kid in a dog crate overnight and just milk out the doe in the morning, then leave the kid with mom to get all he wants all day long. Basically, if she has only one kid, you get to have half the milk she produces. :)
Karen Espalin said:
If a goat who had one kid only has one side of her udder with milk in it (we were not paying attention and I'm assuming he drinks only on that side) is there any way to promote milk in that side? Trying to hand milk on that side?
Also, when we have another single birth, is there anything that can be done before one side dries off? Tape a different teet each day? :-)
I've seen drawings of how goats' teeth change with age, but I'm not sure that I could look at a goat's teeth and figure out its age. If the seller can't tell you the goat's age, I'm not sure I'd want to buy it unless its overall body condition was really outstanding, and it looked young. Knowing that you're in Africa and things are not ideal there, I'd be a little more lenient than here. In the US, Canada, or UK, I wouldn't buy a goat if the seller couldn't tell me the age.
Thanks Deborah, thats really helpful. I guess I'm not going to find out for definite here the age of a goat, or how many times its kidded, I think its by the teeth that you tell? (Age I mean, rather than pregnancies!!) I'll have to practice.............
I have had a couple of does who wound up lopsided because they had a single kid that preferred one side. It has always corrected itself on a subsequent lactations. And we always watch very carefully to be sure it never happens again. However, it probably depends on whether it has happened more than once with the does you're looking at. Also, I'd want to feel the udder to be sure it's not due to mastitis or something more insidious.