What is the longest someone on this forum has had a doe in milk? I have heard dairies can have does in milk for "years". Input please. Jolene
One of my Nubians went 945 days on her first lactation until I dried her off. She could have kept going through another year but A) I thought she was bred, and B) I wanted to make the INBA deadline for this year's extended lactation award. Unfortunately the breeding didn't take so she's dry at this time, and i just hope she will kid this year. The moral of this story is Don't dry a good milking doe off until you have a confirmed preg. test! :bang
We milked our grade Alpine doe for 20 months. She gave a consistent 3/4 of a gallon at once a day milking. Her production increased to a gallon the following spring when she raised a grafted doeling for us! I sold her only doeling...DUH...so we bred her and dried her off at 20 months. She gave us triplets in March, two doelings and a buck. I kept the doeling that appraised better. We won't breed the doe again until she doesn't give anymore milk.
Gal down the road from me has one of our Saanens. Milked her through for 3 years (going on 4) and she is still giving a gallon a day. She increases each Spring (in sync with kidding around her) and then comes back to the 1 gallon/day. She is 7 now, so if she doesn't get bred this year, I guess they probably won't even try. (They don't even drink the milk - they want it for feeding their foo-foo puppies).
All our does are on extended 22-month lactations. I have one family line that does better than the other -- nice flat lactation curve. First freshener Clara in her 16th month of lactation is still milking 10-11# per day. However, third freshener Lea is only milking 6-7# in her 16th month. Agree with Karen, I don't dry a doe off until I've confirmed pregnancy. Hence, Ellie's been milked for over 42 months but still producing 4# a day - since she's in and out of the milk room in 6 minutes, it's better than having her dry. Really hope I get her settled this year! I have my milk tested monthly by the state and yearly, for free, the state sends samples from each half to Cornell for more detailed analysis. No issues with quality.
