[gerpsych]

Hi, I am sorry if this has been covered before but my searching could not find it. My two kids seem to prefer one of their mother's teats. One side looks empty much of the time and the other side full and taut (Not mastitis, I think, as neither hot nor tender). I partially milked out the full side and plan to do the same tonight. This seems a waste as the kids are not keen on the bottle, as they have already drunk from the other side ! My questions are :-

Do I accept that they are going to use one side preferentially and she will look lopsided ? (We don't show so aesthetics are not important to us)
Will she stop filling the unused udder ?
Is the unused udder at a high risk of mastitis ?
What do you think of teat tape ? Some sites suggest putting tape on the favoured teat to push the kids to use the other one .

Again, apologies if this has been done before,

Cheers

[gerpsych]

This is a video of micropore being used like this .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNFcs0W5-us

[Lesley Silvester]

First, I would say that there is a risk of mastitis to the unused teat. Are you not interested in having the milk for yourself? If so just start to milk out that side. If not, tape could work and I used to to good effect when both my does were feeding the kids that belonged to only one of them. I taped the non-mother and just took the tape off to milk her. After a week or so of trying to suckle her, the kids gave up and stuck to their own mother. Your problem could be that the kids will them swap to the other side and ignore the first side. It might work if you did it for part of the day.

[gerpsych]

Thanks for some helpful advice. I think I'll start unilateral milking rather than the tape.

[Dogwalker]

How old are the kids.
usually once they get going and need more milk they'll start using both sides.
I had to milk out the full side a couple of times on one of my angoras before the kid would start using it.

[gerpsych]

They are just 10 days old. But thankfully, after a night and mornings milking, they have started to use both teats. I don't need to consider the micropore now 

[Lesley Silvester]

They must have heard you making plans. 

[Dogwalker]

I found that the unused side just gets too big for them to get hold of so once milked out they manage it.

Glad it sorted.