Yesterday I took a tour of a Grade A dairy goat operation called Round Mountain Creamery. It was fascinating, and the owner was full of knowledge, although she has full-size goats.
She told me about a new concept introduced by Australian goat keeper by the name of Pat Coleby. Apparently the gist of it is that you don't dry your does off every year, you just keep milking them through the winter even though you just get a small yield. When spring comes, the doe's production goes back up again without being bred. She's had does go 3-4 years this way.
I don't know if this approach is possible with year-round breeders like ND's, but I wonder if anyone knows any more about it.
Replies
It's probably a new idea to her, especially for commercial dairies, which usually freshen every 12 months like clockwork. However, we bought a Jersey that came from a dairy, and when I look at their milk records, I see that they only freshen their cows about every 18 months.
Julieanne Cook said:
Since Nigerians are so popular now, I think it's actually great that we don't have to breed them every year. Especially if you just have them for the milk, it's great to be able to just keep milking and not have to worry about selling kids every year.
I'm glad to see this post, because I have a doe who freshened in July of 2013 with twin bucklings and is still producing pretty well (about a quart a day). In fact, I haven't been able to dry her off! I went to milking only once per day in the fall, and then to every other day a few weeks ago, and cut back her grain, but her production has stayed up, so I'm thinking about just going back to milking her once a day to see what happens. As Deb points out, she is a little, er, "well-loved" looking. On a scale of one to five, she's about a 7. But I worry about cutting her grain back too severely and ending up with other health problems. I had a difficult time drying her off after her first kidding (triplets) and was only able to get her to stop producing a few weeks before her second kidding. She has some dandruff, and I've been giving her BOSS. Of course, she gets minerals (Sweetlix), plenty of fresh water and baking soda free choice.
Well, I'm new so I didn't know it wasn't new. The woman made it sound that way. I just found the practice to be quite interesting.
I thought of a couple more things to add ... one thing I don't like about milking through is that it is so NOT stressful on the doe's body that they usually get a little overweight, and then it usually takes multiple heat cycles and breedings for them to get pregnant.
Also, Gianaclis Caldwell at Pholia Farms in Oregon does extended lactations with some of her does. She has a commercial creamery and has found that she actually gets more milk from her does by milking through than by re-breeding, even though there is a bigger quantity of milk the first couple of months. We've only had extended lactations on about five different does, but they did wind up producing quite a bit more over all of those months than they do when having the two months off at the end of pregnancy. We're on milk test, so I've actually run the numbers.
One final thing of importance ... you have to have the right genetics to do this. Not every doe can keep going for an extended lactation. I have one that had a c-section last year, and I decided to retire her and was looking forward to seeing how long she milked because she would never be bred again. Even though we pushed her as far as we could, she only went 10 months. :(
It's not a new concept at all. We milk through here. I have one doe that's been in milk now for two years, and I had another one that finished a two year lactation last year. I've had some others than milked for a year and a half, including a couple of first fresheners. Some might have gone longer, but they dried up after I bred them again, so can't say that I know how long they would have lasted. The one that is currently in milk is not pregnant yet and still milking.
I don't know why a doe's production would go down through the winter. None of ours ever has.