I am wondering if it is harmful to continue milking a doe that was pregnant but did not deliver. She still has milk in both teats. We won't be breeding her again as this is the second time she has gotten pregnant but not delivered. She is a pet. Actually all my goats are pets.
She was in utero with two bucks and that is thought to be the reason she is not successful with her pregnancies. She also acts like a buck, though this behavior is less now that she is with milk. I have also seen her self suckling.
So will it harm her in any way to continue to milk her? Thoughts?
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If people know a little bit about polled goats, they sometimes make a lot of incorrect assumptions. The only thing polled has to do with fertility is that if you breed polled to polled, you have a higher rate of hermaphrodites, and if a goat is a hermaphrodite, obviously they can't have babies. They can NOT get pregnant because they don't have the right body parts. In one study, they had a 10% increased incidence of hermaphrodites when breeding two heterozygous polled goats and a 25% incidence of hermaphrodites when breeding a homozygous and heterozygous polled goat. That study also showed a higher rate of in utero loss of kids. I'd forgotten about that because I don't know anyone who has actually had that happen when they've bred polled to polled, although a few have had kids born with problems. Any chance this doe was a bred to a polled buck? If so, that could have been the problem. Otherwise, there is no increase in pregnancy problems with polled does as opposed to horned/disbudded does.
Being polled does NOT cause a doe to miscarry. The first five years we had goats, we had horrible fertility problems. Every year about a third of our goats didn't get pregnant or stay pregnant. We lost kids at every stage of pregnancy, and it is really tough to find little four month fetuses that never had a chance to survive outside their mama. The whole thing was because of copper deficiency. It took us several years to figure it out, and I had four different vets tell me that copper deficiency was impossible. Obviously they had never actually read the ingredient tags on feed bags. Nor did they know how much copper goats need. It's been eight years since we figured out our problem, and we haven't had any miscarriages since then! And our fertility went from an average of less than 2 kids per doe to 3.1 kids per doe! We have quintuplets five times now! Although there can be genetic reasons why does don't get pregnant -- and those are VERY rare -- there is NO genetic reason for a doe to miscarry.
I think the vet's theory was with specifically polled does with fertility problems. We decided not to breed her again. It is hard on us and her. Her buck like behavior has essentially stopped since she has milk; which is nice for everyone else in the barn.
She has been getting Noble Goat Dairy Parlor 16 mixed with BOSS and Beet pulp with molasses and Alfalfa pellets twice a day and access to hay, baking soda and minerals free choice and browse. Using replenans plus supplement for copper, selenium etc.
She likes being milked and will self suckle if we don't milk her. Not sure how to get her to stop! If we aren't harming her we will keep doing it.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
If you are going to milk her, then you need to do it regularly, whether than is once or twice a day.
What you describe about being in utero with a male is true with cattle -- not goats. Since goats usually have 2+ kids, they are in utero with a male in 75% of pregnancies.
Also, a freemartin cow does NOT get pregnant. The fact that your does has gotten pregnant means that she has all of the necessary female parts. If she is miscarrying, the cause would be either nutritious or infectious. The vast majority of the time it is nutritious. If she is deficient in selenium and/or copper or just has generally poor nutrition, she won't be able to carry a pregnancy to term. What do you feed her? Any additional minerals?