Author Topic: Kids have all gone, drowning in milk! (Read 3741 times)

mariegold · « **on:** August 17, 2014, 09:20:25 am »

Hey goaty experts I have reached another first in my goat keeping adventure,

All three billy kids have found lovely new homes where they are being kept as companions to other (more useful) goats, HURRAH! The mums were a bit bothered for a while but seem to have gotten over it pretty quickly!

So now I have two heavy milkers, Blodwyn the Sannan is giving about 5 Litres and Enfys the Togg is giving about 4 Litres. This is too much for us, although we can freeze a lot, give some to neighbours in exchange for eggs, beer etc...

Eventually I would like to dry one up and keep her as a companion to my milker but I wonder when would be the best time to do this? and how best to go about it? I imagine waiting until late Autumn would make sense as they will naturally produce less then? Do I just cut out the concentrates at that time and just feed hay/oats/sugar beet?

Or can I do this gradually now?

Also how do I know that I am stripping them out completely? I milk them until no more comes out, then go back and check a couple of minutes later and manage to squeeze a bit more out but I am never sure I've got all of it, will leaving a few squirts behind cause a problem!?

As always I want to do the best thing for the goat, causing the least amount of discomfort and distress as possible!

Sorry this is such a long post, any advice would be very gratefully received, many thanks

Lesley Silvester · « **Reply #1 on:** August 17, 2014, 09:15:51 pm »

I always give the udder a good massage when the flow has stopped, then get more out. I can do this several times sometimes before there is nothing left.

Wish my kids were gone - they're driving me mad. Not big enough yet though because these are going for meat. They are suckling both adult goats so I get next to no milk at the moment.

tizaala · « **Reply #2 on:** August 18, 2014, 09:00:10 am »

Cut down on any protein feeds just give hay to the one you want to dry off. the more you milk her the more she will give so start taking a little less each day, keep a careful eye on her bag for mastitis.

mariegold · « **Reply #3 on:** August 18, 2014, 10:05:23 am »

Thanks both, so you think its ok to start drying her off now? I don't want to go against nature too much and deprive her of protein if her body is determined to produce milk...... have you successfully dried goats off at this time of year?

On the plus side the evening milk is wonderfully creamy! Might even dust off the hand cranked Ukrainian separator...

sokel · « **Reply #4 on:** August 18, 2014, 01:24:16 pm »

We also have milk by the Gallons at the Moment, all attempts to dry some of the goats up is failing miserably
they just start to drop slightly and then a couple of days later they are back up to full yield $:-\$

Anke · « **Reply #5 on:** August 18, 2014, 02:13:15 pm »

It is quite sad that you feel you have to dry off your goat(s) - the main reason for keeping them is to have milk all year round! I continue to milk most of mine for the first three months of their pregnancy - makes it much easier not getting them too fat! (Unless they have to board to get mated, in which case they are dried off of course).

Things to do with excess milk...

1) Anyone near you got pigs? It's probably not strictly legal and the piggy people on this forum may be up in arms about it, but pigs are allowed to be fed milk, and it would make a good barter for some meat later on.
2) Investigate making cheese - soft cheeses don't need much in the way of attention and being tied to the stove, and they freeze well - to make a good size cheesecake (like the American baked variety) you will need cheese made from 4 - 5 ltrs of milk.
3) A cream separator coupled with pigs is the obvious answer - homemade ice cream is simply the best!!!
4) All my kids continue to get milk until at least 6months old, if I have enough even longer. Any entire male kids get milk (about 0.5ltrs per day in an evening bottle) for as long as they want it. My current boy is 17 months old and still has his bed-time bottle.
5) We make our bread with milk instead of water, soda-bread is great if made with yoghurt, and we (a family of 4) get through a 1.5ltrs per day just simply by drinking it...

sokel · « **Reply #6 on:** August 18, 2014, 06:05:07 pm »

The 2 we are trying to dry up have had 13 kids between them in 2 years one having triplets and then quads the other 2 lots of triplets. as we have plenty of other milkers we have chosen to dry them up and not to kid them in 2015, They have other ideas on the matter !
Normally if the goats are milking well we will milk them through and wont kid them.
It just happens that this year we have 4 heavy milkers and then 3 of the 4 Gurnseys are milking

mariegold · « **Reply #7 on:** August 18, 2014, 09:01:31 pm »

Hi all,
I only want to dry one up and milk the other one, then I would like to alternate their kidding to give them a bit of a rest. I already make cheese, yogurt and soap with the milk plus I give some to my neighbours in exchange for eggs/veg/fruit. We were hoping to join a pig share but that hasn't worked out and we don't have the space for pigs ourselves sadly.

I am freezing the surplus milk, I guess the yield will go down over the winter so I'm sure we will get through it then. Really I just want to know when would be the best time to dry her up? I didn't really want to sell the kids but the people who own our land didn't want us to keep them there as they are smelly (apparently). Ho hum one day I will have a smallholding all of my own

Anke · « **Reply #8 on:** August 18, 2014, 10:02:25 pm »

If your goat gives still about 4ltrs you may struggle to dry her up quickly. I would start by not striping her out completely, so leave some milk in her udder and reduce her concentrate intake. Usual recommendation would be to stop concentrates completely, but the danger is that she will go very thin and still try and produce 4ltrs... so slowly would be my way of doing it. Once she milks less than 2ltrs per day you can probably take out concentrates completely -maybe still some sugar beet shreds and some oats or similar lower protein feed, and switch to once a day milking, again not stripping out completely. Once down to 1ltr per day I would go for once every two days, and no feed other than hay, and then three days and so on. All the time - if her udder gets hot, feels very full and tight - milk her out completely and start again with slow reduction. She will decide if she wants to dry off or not - if she kidded this spring I think you may struggle, these goats are bred to milk for at least one year.

PS.: Castrated males are NOT smelly!

mariegold · « **Reply #9 on:** August 19, 2014, 08:37:23 am »

Thanks Anke, that really makes things clearer! She doesn't seem to appreciate being milked twice a day and goes ballistic when we try to squeeze the last few millilitres out, she is a lovely affectionate goat though....

Lesley Silvester · « **Reply #10 on:** August 19, 2014, 08:59:43 pm »

She doesn't have any heat in her udder, does she? I'm wondering if she's finding it painful being milked, in which case you might want to consider mastitis.

mariegold · « **Reply #11 on:** August 20, 2014, 08:13:10 am »

Hi MGOM,

Her udder seems fine, I think she is still determined to save some for her kids, she looks for them after milking... makes me feel soooooo guilty.

Lesley Silvester · « **Reply #12 on:** August 20, 2014, 11:25:25 pm »

I suspect one of mine does this as she is often still hard when I've got all I can get. Then I see her feeding the kids a short while afterwards. Ratbag.