HI everyone,
Needing some advice with a First Freshner.
I have sisters who kidded first time this year, both gave me twins which was lovely.
One doeling has taken really well to milking her sister is a whole other story. I have managed to milk her with a Henry milker but she is not happy about me hand milking the last bits out. I have a stool under her to stop her from sitting but she still climbs the walls of my milk parlor with her back legs. Funny to watch but not very productive. But the stool under her has helped a little, but she is now starting to figure out new ways to try and stop me from striping the last bits out! Due to my work schedule I do not have the time to work with her antics in the morning and milk her twice a day but I still would like to milk her in the evenings as I have more time to work with her.
I have been milking her twice a day for a week and a half and would like advice on how to transition her to once a day. Do I still feed her grain twice a day? Do I feed her the twice daily amount just in the evening or do I just reduce her grain and feed her evening only? Do I just stop the morning milk tomorrow and start milking in the evenings and hope that she does not start to dry up? Any advice on how to do this would be greatly appreciated.
Replies
Wow! I don't know why I never saw this when it was originally posted. How is it going now?
If you don't strip out the last bit -- OR if you switch to once a day milking -- the results will both be reduced milk supply. I'm not sure why you wanted to switch to once a day. If you switch to once a day, and she still doesn't let you milk out all the milk, then her supply will go down even more. It sometimes takes a week or two for a first freshener to get with the program. I know this post is old, but I hope you didn't give up.
As for grain, if you are only milking her once a day, you can just give her the usual grain ration that you would give her at one milking. There is no need to give her grain when she is not on the milk stand. Actually giving her grain only on the milk stand will make her more willing to get up there. She needs to understand that that's the deal -- she gets grain on the milk stand, and you get her milk. Since supply goes down with once a day milking, if you keep giving her grain a second time each day, she might wind up overweight.
I have a girl that doesn't want me to hand strip her. When I hand strip I hardly get anything more so why bother. My machine seems to get most of it and I just finish with that and dip her teats and forget the hand stripping. Actually with all my does I get next to nothing hand stripping after so am not sure why everyone says to do it.
One of my does used to always try to lie down and my hubby fixed a wide leather strap that attached on the stanchion and went under her belly. It worked and since she couldn't lie down she got her knees up on it and that was fine. We were both happy. I have a side rail attachment on my stanchion so he just added a short attachment on the side I was milking from.
Thank you Jess. That is pretty much what I started with yesterday. She seems calmer today being milked in the evening only.
I would keep her feed quantity and schedule the same. That way, if she calms down and you can start milking in the morning again, you won't have to change her routine back and forth.