Hello everybody! I apologize for this long message but I am fairly confused and desperate.
I have not been online for a few weeks, because life is so crazy....my mother in law is now in hospice, my own mother is having her own health issues, and we just got matched to adopt a fairly big sibling group through foster care. There's a lot of intense things going on!!
and I think that's why Canela (Cinnamon) our amazing FF suddenly stopped producing.
She kidded in mid February - a beautiful doeling and buckling. They are doing great, she raised them well
She was doing terrific, giving me about 3.5 cups of sweet milk each morning. I'm a newbie, so it took me a couple of weeks to learn how to milk properly, and for her to get used to being milked. When I left town to see my mother, my husband tried to milk her, but was not really accustomed to it, and she kicked a lot with him. So he held her back leg while he milked, and he only got about a cup or so each morning.
When I got back to town, she let me milk her well from one side, but kicked a lot when I tried to milk her other side. So on that side, my husband would hold her back leg while I milked. I was still able to get about 3 cups of milk each morning for the past week. We separate the kids from her at night, but after we milk her, we leave them together to nurse.
But all of a sudden yesterday she lost interest in the mixture we give on the milking stanchion (of sweet 16%, non sweet 16%, BOSS and calf manna) - she kicked tremendously and barely allowed me to milk - it seemed like she initially let down a little milk, but then it either disappeared or would not "let down". She ate hardly any of her high protein grain. But she did eat some timothy hay.
This happened even more today - she did not give more than a half cup and she would not eat the high protein grain.
She did take some mineral salt, she took some baking soda - she did well during the day, and seemed to regain her appetite, eating timothy hay well.
Then in the evening she finally started eating the high protein mix with good appetite.
But still NO MILK! it feels like the udder is much more empty than usual. sh let me massage the udder, and even let me try to milk - but almost nothing came...
the kids are ONLY 8-9 weeks. they are doing fine, but how could she possibly dry off this early?
Is this because of all the changes - first me milking her, then my husband, than me again....
Is it a nutritional problem? she seems to want less high protein mix (we were giving her 4 cups a day of it, 2 in the morning and 2 in the evening - and she was giving us between 2-3 cups of milk, plus whatever she gave to the kids.
Should we have the vet come and do some tests? She does not seem sick - she is eating again, and drinking ok. Her poop looks ok, and she is peeing.
To cap it all off, we soon will have to leave to spend some time in another state, tomeet the children we are going to adopt, and spend time with them and their current foster parents. a close friend who has cared for the farm in the past will be staying here and taking care of all the animals. he know them and they know him; but he has not milked her (or any goats, in the past).
By the way,based on advice from the wonderful folks here, we bought a Henry Milker to learn how to use it and so he would be able to milk her when he was caring for the animals. But right before we started to use it, she went from 3 cups to almost zero, in 48 hours!!!!
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THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!
all the information is very helpful.
I am absolutely convinced that if I or my husband are stressed, the goat(s) know that and respond; unfortunately I cannot get him to agree about that.
the babies and momma are together 24hrs a day since I got all this guidance; everyone seems very happy and the kids are super playful. i will try to post pics. during our trip, i missed them all so much I kept watching the videos of them which are on my cell phone.
the adoption is a slow and arduous process, as I understand is generally the case.
thanks again to everyone! I will post an update after we start milking again.
And I have been meaning to come add that sometimes, when I doe is back into her heat cycles, there is a decline for a day or four during that time... but your doe is probably not in her cycle yet. Just wanted to put that out there for you for the future.
Though definitely not directly related, I will pass one what I did this past year. My younger doe, second kidding, I did not milk until at four months when her babies left - she gave me around a quart a day. I think her production was high because I left her babies with her, triplets, then when they left, I got it all! There were six kids out there, constantly active, running, jumping, using energy and getting hungry. She is a little over a year since kidding and I am still averaging about 3/4 of a quart (milking once a day). Some days I get much more than others. Recently, I got less than a pint and thought my milking paradise was about to end then it went back up and three days later I got 1/2 ounce less than a quart! (Just could not convince her to give me that last half ounce.<g>)
I've watched trying to figure out why some days I get much more than others. The biggest thing I have noticed is how many times I take them warm water during the day - more warm water (at least three times) seems to produce more milk, sunflower seeds and alfalfa pellets for her in addition to her grain and am still trying to figure out if the banana peels as a snack make a difference. The point is that even with her being established, there can be quite a variance in how much milk gets into the jar.
As Deborah suggested, leaving her kids with her may very well cause more production; it totally makes sense. And as she pointed out, when you are gone, there is no concern about someone needing to milk her - they will do a very good job of milking mom.
(And I do believe that when I am even slightly stressed, there is less milk accessible to me. I see a real pattern in how much milk and if I go to work on that day - then is it because I don't spend as much time or because my stress results in her not "letting down" her milk? Though it only seems to vary a couple of ounces, it does seem to be that way; one of the many good reasons to keep barn records.)
Yes, separating kids at 5-6 weeks every night is too early for a first freshener. When kids are less than two months old, a doe would have to be making 2-3 quarts a day for you to be able to equally share with kids if they're only with her for 12 hours a day. It's good for the kids that you weren't able to get more than a cup or two. I know there are a lot of discussions on here about this topic, and maybe some are not very clear. This is the one that fully explains starting to milk:
http://nigeriandwarfgoats.ning.com/forum/topics/starting-to-milk
It provides a lot of details on how to know if it's okay to start separating every night. You have to read through the whole thing because there are lots of variables.
I wouldn't worry about it at this point. Since you weren't able to get much milk, the kids were probably still able to get what they needed during that 12 hours.
This is super helpful, and reassuring.
We have never limited the nursing during the daytime. We started the night-time separation around 5-6 weeks; was that too early? If so, I must have misunderstood, because I'm trying to follow the recommendations you make on this website.
We have a goat mentor here, who seems great, but separates the kids from momma at birth, and then bottle feeds. We are trying to do it your way, letting them nurse, and just starting to milk along the way. So far, we have had no worms or cocci since we started a couple years ago with our starter herd (a 6month doe, 2 9week does, 1 9week wether), and the eldest doe is now, at 2yo, a FF. the two younger does just got pregnant, and should kid in early september.
I think the current kids are exactly 9 weeks today (Tuesday April 21), and they seem healthy. We don't see them nurse a lot, but we don't watch them all the time. And they don't have diarrhea, they play a lot. I guess I am mostly worried that we started milking too early (once a day, from the time of about 5-6 weeks - and since we're newbies, I don't think we got more than 1 cup a day, until I seemed to get into the groove for about 1 week, when I was milking about 2 cups a day, right before I had to travel out of town. I probably got 2-3 cups for only 2-3 days. I guess we are learning, so we can do it better next time.
In order to do this adoption, we will have to leave the farm in our friends' hands for about 10days, and we will reassure him not to worry about milking Cinnamon - just to put her on the milk stand and give her food and love :)
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
I wanted to clarify ... it's usually only within the first few days of life that a kid gets diarrhea from too much milk, if it's being dam raised. If you're bottle-feeding, you can easily give a kid too much milk and cause diarrhea within the first couple of months. However, at age two months when dam raising, if they get diarrhea, it would most likely be due to coccidiosis.
With kids that age, there is no reason to have anyone milking her while you're out of town. Just leave the kids with her, and they'll take care of everything. Once kids get to be 4 months or older, that can get tricky as their nursing is more sporadic, depending upon what's happening on various days. But leaving them with mom for a weekend or something shouldn't be a problem, even up to 6 months. They'll nurse enough to keep her going.
In 13 years, the only "fat" kids I ever saw were singles that were born here before we realized we should be milking the doe every day. However, I have seen a lot of people (myself included when I got started) think that a kid is fat because it has a big belly. A big belly is a sign of malnutrition, either from not enough milk or parasites. And not enough milk leads to parasite problems because the kids are not getting enough of mom's antibodies to fight them. Malnourished kids get a big belly because they are eating as much solid food as they can stuff into themselves, but it doesn't have the nutrients they need for growth.
Goats put fat on their spine and their brisket. There are lots of goats with big bellies that are actually underweight. Here is a great PDF on body condition scoring in goats:
http://www.luresext.edu/goats/research/bcs_factsheet.pdf
I have seen many kids that people thought were "fat" when they actually had a body condition score of 2, which is underweight.
When kids get too much milk, they get diarrhea. When they get more milk than they need but not too much, they will grow very fast. We have lots of kids here that are picked up at 3 months, and people exclaim that they're the same size as their 5-6 month old kids at home. It's because we don't limit the amount of milk they get from mom for the first two months. That also means that we have none of the problems that people think are normal, such as coccidiosis and parasites in kids. We have many goats here now that have never had a coccidiostat or a dewormer in their entire lives -- because they didn't need it. If they need it, I will certainly give it to them. It all starts with a solid foundation of good nutrition provided by mom's milk.
we have not separated them from her during the day. the only separation is at night - which we started to do around 5 weeks of age. they sleep in a large dog-crate, next to her inside the barn. they cannot nurse over night, but they are with her. and during the day they are with her and are free to nurse all day long. we are definitely not trying to wean them from nursing. I was hoping they would just keep nursing with her for longer.
you are reassuring - we will just keep putting her onto the stand twice a day.
it sounds like we should stop separating the kids from her at night, especially when our friend takes care of the farm for us. and we should also just keep giving her love on the stand, when she is not letting down milk for us. today she let me pet her a lot and massage her udder gently. she certainly seemed happy for me to do that, and was very affectionate toward me after we let her off the stand.
it's true we are not weighing the kids, but they sure do keep growing, and if anything, we have worried they are getting too fat recently. they are definitely both eating hay and we were planning to let them have some grain (alfalfa), especially the doeling, but we have no started that yet.
I'm not clear on whether or not the kids are nursing. It is really not a good idea to be separating kids from a first freshener before they're two months old. First fresheners don't make that much milk. Having no other kids to compare them to, you really don't know if they're gaining weight adequately unless you're weighing them, and you didn't mention that. It's a better idea to simply put her on the milk stand twice a day without ever separating the kids. If you get something, great. If you don't get anything, it's because the kids need everything she can produce.
Also, she will produce more milk if you leave her with the kids. Research has shown that does release oxytocin when their kids nurse, which in turn causes them to produce more milk. Does raising kids actually produce more milk than does that don't have kids nursing. We figured this out after raising goats for a few years, so it was pretty exciting when I saw a study that actually verified what we had observed. The first few years we had goats, we'd wean them around 2-3 months because that's what everyone else at the time was doing. We noticed that their supply would plummet within a few days. If you need to increase a doe's production, the best thing to do is let the kids nurse 24/7.
It's not unusual for a goat on the milk stand to refuse to eat if she doesn't want to be milked. They become somewhat hyper-vigilant about having you take their milk, so they ignore food.