OK - newbie to milking here!
I'm SO excited that milking is getting easier for me. My does are being reasonable - as long as there is food involved. Amazing how they can control the milk - food ends - I can't get anymore milk to come out!
Anyway - my girls are all first fresheners. The one I was milking today has very thin streams of milk. It squirts just fine, is delicious, and I'm enjoying the experience but would like education about:
1) is size of milk stream related to how much milk is there (ie. this doe has 1 kid on her - a smaller kid that I am leaving on - my milking is merely practicing right now).
2) is size of milk stream related to first freshening?
3) is size of milk stream related to genetics and size of teat?
Looking forward to learning more now that milking is getting easier. I still have to reset and I have a mantra in my head to keep my hands doing the right thing but I c an do it without looking now and get 2/3 successful moments!
Judy
Replies
I have a doe whose orifices seemed to get smaller as she got older. She was everyone's least favorite goat to milk. She is now retired at age 10. :)
Julia @Woody Glen Farm said:
I have had it change a bit with one of my does, but not over years, just over the freshening. Thank God for that, because she has tiny teats, so it takes a long time to milk her. When her kids were first born, I thought there was no way I'd be able to milk her because she'd have to stand there for WAY too long and I could never feed her than much. :) Thankfully her orifices did get larger. It also helped that she happens to be a doe who will stand there to be milked after her grain is gone. I have to ND does in milk, and both will stand and chew their cud after their grain is gone, so I can finish milking them. I also have two Nubian does. They're major grain hogs. If it's even almost gone, they're not going to stand to be milked.
So do they change as they get older? Will the orifices get bigger?
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
Size of milk stream is based upon size of orifice, which is basically genetics, and there is no relationship between that and length or thickness of teats. I used to think that long teats were the most important thing in the world until I had a doe with long teats and tiny orifices!