[Carl f k]

I have been reading up on all kinds of goaty stuff and see that some people milk once a day and some twice but no one giving any reasons.. Can anyone fill me in please??

[plumseverywhere]

Its dependent on how much milk your goat is giving IMO. Currently Savannah (our maiden, ie. never had kids) is milked twice a day. She was up to 9 pints but now about 6 pints a day. When she drops more we will hopefully get onto once daily milking.
Puffin was only once a day because her kid was feeding from her same time   

[jaykay]

Ok.
 
I milk once a day because it suits how I live - both work and goats.

I leave the kids on all the time until they're 3-4 months old. Then when I feel they're big enough, I separate them from mum at night (just the other side of a wire mesh partition). I milk in the morning then leave the kids with mum all day.

I like them being with their mums in the day and since I can work anything from 9 to 14 hour days, I can't rely on a regular evening milking time, whereas I can with the morning milk.

There's only me now, so I don't need gallons of milk. And if I need an overnight away, whoever comes to feed for me, doesn't have to milk as I just leave the kids with mum overnight too (doesn't work once kids have gone to new homes but that's never til 6 months or so).

[ballingall]

Hi Carl,


We milk twice a day, but this is because we take the kids away from their mums and we milk mums twice a day and hen bottle feed the kids. It means more work for us, but it means we can monitor completely not just how much milk a goat is giving, but also how much milk a kid is drinking.


It might sound cruel to take the kids away from their mums, but in actual fact you would be surprised how many of the mums would rather we do the looking after!


Kids can often prefer drinking from one side of the udder, and end up leaving their mums udder lopsided, which we don't want as we show our goats.


Beth

[Lesley Silvester]

I'm milking twice a day at the moment as you do get slightly more that way.  The yield drops in the winter so I will probably go onto once a day then.  When it starts to increase in the spring, it will be back to twice daily.  I don't expect next summer's yield to be as good as this years.

[sokel]

I usualy milk twice a day 12 hrs between milking but I have just dropped down to once a day as the milk has dropped so the highest milker is only giving 6 pts a day

[Lesley Silvester]

Sokel, isn't six pints rather a lot for her to hold onto for twenty four hours?  I'm milking twice a day and getting four pints a day.  I won't go down to once a day unless she drops to two pints daily.

[ballingall]

6pints is a fair bit to hold onto for 24 hours. But- if a goat is giving 6-7 litres it'll be producing 6 pints in 12 hours anyway. It maybe depends how heavy a milker she is. We drop them to once a day milking once they go consistently below 1.5litres at one milking, so I guess that's 2-3 pints roughly, and 4-5 pints in a whole day.


Beth

[sokel]

When she was milking heavy she was giving 18 pints a day 9 pints at each milking. With 6 pints she is still soft

[plumseverywhere]

6pints is a fair bit to hold onto for 24 hours. But- if a goat is giving 6-7 litres it'll be producing 6 pints in 12 hours anyway. It maybe depends how heavy a milker she is. We drop them to once a day milking once they go consistently below 1.5litres at one milking, so I guess that's 2-3 pints roughly, and 4-5 pints in a whole day.


Beth

Based on this I've just put Savannah onto once daily milking!! I love you Beth lol!!! oh its so liberating to be freed up at morning school run time 

[Anke]

When she was milking heavy she was giving 18 pints a day 9 pints at each milking. With 6 pints she is still soft

What are you doing with all that milk btw? And she must need a fair bit  of grub to maintain that production... Are you hand-milking her? My hands would never do that quantitiy regularly...

[sokel]

She was on dairy nuts 18% , golden calf coarse mix 18% , whole oats, sugarbeet shreds ,  a handfull of alfalfa and various fruit and veg  twice a day and unlimited hay  this was for the season after she had kidded and she has slowly dropped. her kids are now 17 months old and one of her daughters is a maiden milker giving just under 5 pints a day .
yes we are milking by hand even though we have a machine.
when she was in peak yield there was 2 of us milking but there is only myself now after an accident involving a broken hip 

Ohh and the milk we use it ourselves and the dogs get some every day then a farmer friend is rearing calves on it in return for hay

[plumseverywhere]

Wowee!  just out of interest, what  breed is she? and don't your hands and wrists hurt? I'm struggling with just Savannah to milk and she produces less than your girl, i have to get the children to take over for a few minutes half way as i'm in pain.

[Anke]

She was on dairy nuts 18% , golden calf coarse mix 18% , whole oats, sugarbeet shreds ,  a handfull of alfalfa and various fruit and veg  twice a day and unlimited hay  this was for the season after she had kidded and she has slowly dropped. her kids are now 17 months old and one of her daughters is a maiden milker giving just under 5 pints a day .
yes we are milking by hand even though we have a machine.
when she was in peak yield there was 2 of us milking but there is only myself now after an accident involving a broken hip 

Ohh and the milk we use it ourselves and the dogs get some every day then a farmer friend is rearing calves on it in return for hay

I am impressed  . Good arrangement for rearing calves on it, I use my extra for the pigs and the pork ir really tender! (But I do not have 18 pints from one goat per day...) My top milker, a HB BT type nanny gave 8 litres at her peak last summer, but then got mastitis   a few times, still milking 3ltrs now though, and she did make 1560 kgs for the year! Going to get her mated again this autumn.
But I do feel for your wrists and fingers!

[countrywoman]

I had been wondering about reducing to once-a-day with both of mine as they are only giving about half a pint each at evening milking now.  Do I just stop, or is there some gradual process I should follow?