When bottle feeding kids, after the Mom kids do you milk more often the normal the first day to get more colostrum?
Hi Rehoboth Farm and welcome to the forum! My does are quite engorged pre-kidding and at kidding. I milk them almost all the way out right after they kid and then several times throughout the first day as I can (I have hungry goat babies that are a distraction). I usually get 7-9 pounds of colostrum from the older does but that is with some still left in. As with milking later on, the more often you empty the udder, the more the doe produces so if you are concerned with not getting enough colostrum then milk her frequently the first day to stimulate production of that day 1 colostrum. That's what I would do.
I don't milk mine all the way out after kidding because it can pull her source of calcium she may need. So it's lots of mini milkings 2 or 3 times in 12 hours. Vicki
The same here, a couple of times small amounts, never all the way empty. The does recover faster if they have a reserve, and the kids don't need it. If we would leave the kids on the dam, they would not drink the udder empty
and you may need to do that for days so she doesn't become ingorged some of course are more heavy milkers than others.
So you do several milkings a day, then say I want to freeze some cholostrum for other uses...I've been told 130 degrees for an hour and 135 degrees for an hour, which one is best? And can goats cholostrum work on human babies too? A friend is curious and pg.
It's 135...I actually do no lower the whole hour than 135 and no higher than 140 the whole hour. I know this number works, considering the first time I tested everyone but one doe was positive! By day two of kidding she is being milked twice a day like a normal goat. Vicki
