teat size on first freshener

[longhorngal]

Is it likely that teat size will enlarge on a female first freshener? I bought a yearling lamancha about 4 months ago and hand milked her until I got tired of it then dried her up. Her teats are just tiny, I was told they would improve with hand milking but didn't find that to be so. I like everything about her other than that.
Cara

[suzyhomemaker09]

It has been my experience that they will get easier to deal with if she is consistently milked...ya have to sort of stretch them out. It is not an overnight process...it will mean lots of cramped hands until she is easy to milk.

[Feral Nature]

They will get much easier to milk, but drying her up is not the answer. You have to work through it. It enlarges the teat and strengthens your hands. As a second freshener, she will be easier to milk, but will also have MORE milk. I know this first "hand"...so to speak. I have a few that freshened with such small teats I literally would cry as I milked them, hands cramping and tears flowing. But now this year, they are so EASY to milk, but it took last year me hand milking them and then all this year. Now at 6 months fresh at their second lactations, they are a breeze. I am now milking 2 FF and 2 second F. The FF are as easy as the second fresheners by now as the months go by.

It takes blood sweat and tears, literally. Calluses and determination. Don't give up.

This is why I do not sell first fresheners to anyone new to milking. I do not want them frustrated and upset with the whole milking process. When someone buys a milker from me, they are not just paying for the goat, they are paying for the grueling months of torture I have gone through to get them ready to go to a new milking home and be absolute dreams to milk.

[xoxoGOATSxoxo]

Kids will also enlarge teats, and unlike human hands, their mouths are made for it.

The kids nurse the dams at my house. It is easier, and does the teat stretching work for me. The mama has enough milk for me and the babies, especially after a few weeks.

But, there are disadvantages, things like small cuts on the teats if there is alot of or some aggressive kids, less milk for me (but it still is enough!), and potential damage to the udder. If you're big on shows, I wouldnt do it. I only go to one or two shows a year, so it works for me.

Good luck!

[Feral Nature]

Good point. I will be allowing my buck kids to nurse this year as I will have 12 does freshening. The doelings will be pulled at birth and bottle-fed. Any bucklings will be dam-raised to lengthen teats on FF, then butchered at weaning, then the dams milked after that (and probably milked once a day before weaning as well as these does produce more than twins can eat). Just have to find what works for you.

[susanne]

i had this idea too but unfortunately kids can ruin an udder very badly
i have a milking machine now

[goatsareus]

Originally Posted by susanne

i had this idea too but unfortunately kids can ruin an udder very badly

What do you mean when you say kids can ruin an udder very badly?

[Feral Nature]

If a goat is going to be shown or if you want the udder to stay in perfect shape, you don't want the kids to nurse. It can go lop-sidded on you and their teeth can tear it up. The only way to keep it in perfect condition is to hand/machine milk without the kids nursing. if the kids do nurse, you still have to check the udder once or twice a day to keep one side from blowing or becoming disfigured.

[goatsareus]

Originally Posted by Feral Nature

If a goat is going to be shown or if you want the udder to stay in perfect shape, you don't want the kids to nurse. It can go lop-sidded on you and their teeth can tear it up. The only way to keep it in perfect condition is to hand/machine milk without the kids nursing. if the kids do nurse, you still have to check the udder once or twice a day to keep one side from blowing or becoming disfigured.

I guess the point I would make, is that it is not the kid that causes a lop sided udder. It is the human caretaker that causes a lop sided udder to happen. And to be honest, in 30 years of goat raising, I have never seen any damage to the teats from a nursing kid.

But I am very interested in this thread. I do not know how to assess this question. One can not observe an individual goat in its first year of milking with AND without the kid nursing. So how can one be sure the kid nursing is indeed stretching out the teat? How does anyone know if kids enlarge the teats?

[Feral Nature]

You can access you management techniques with goats when you raise does who are closely related and share similar traits. My 5 foundation does are full genetic sisters and they are very similar in all areas. If I handmilked some and let kids nurse some, I would be able to see differences as they are similar. These have only been hand-milked, their kids have never nursed...so i know they are alike. Now all their daughters are all from one buck, so they are also somewhat closely related. So if I wanted to, I could dam-raise some of the next generation and bottle-raise and then compare udders, there would be a difference I am sure....it is all in a "feel" you have for your animals and their genetic predisposition for certain traits.

[chamoisee]

I dam raise, and I used to show...probably will again. My does had sjhow quality udders. What ruins the udders is not dam raising, it is irresponsible dam raising- never milking the doe out unless you feel liek it, or after the kids are sold...this cannot be done if you want to be assured of a sound udder. The doe has got to be milked at least once a day from the day she births. Doing otherwise can easily result in a lopsided udder.

I have had udder and teat damage, though, in the followign circumstances:

Horned buck kids are very, very hard on udders. Butcher them at 2 months, and if possible, disbud them even though they're going for meat.

Very tight foreudders: I think there's a reason that there aremore loose, pocketed foreudders on earth than nice tight show quality ones. I think nature has selected for pocketed udders. ::irk:: Watch kids nurse. A loose foreudder allows the udder to swing back out of the way if the kids butt it too hard. A tight foreudder takes the full brunt of the blow and quickly bruises, or the teats take the damage. I've only had serious teat damage with one doe...who didn't produce enough milk beyond what her two hulking doelings were taking for me to bother with milking. Lucky that I checked her udder twice a day just like the milkers, or I would never have noticed that the skin on the teat was bitten through at least 75% of the way around.

Teat size: yes, this is why I dam raise, especially first fresheners. Not only do I want my young does to know how to mother kids if need be, and to have some focus for their attentions, but I also want the kids to make my life easier! I don't mind small teats as badly as I do tiny, tight orifices. I won't keep a doe with microscopic teat orifices. The other thign about dam raising is that even if there is only one kid nursing a very productive doe with tiny teats, at least the udder isn't tight and hard to get a grip on. The kid relieves some of the fullness, making it easier to milk the doe. I have actually been known ::guilty:: to pluck up a disadvantaged buckling and put him on a tiny titted doe that isn't his dam, just to help me out.

[goatsareus]

This is a subject in which I feel entirely inadequate, and am looking to understand it better.

This year I am milking two yearling first fresheners, full sisters, as well as a 5 year old doe. I expected to also be milking a 6 year old but she has an unresolved abortion issue and is destined to be meat. The FF's are out of this 6 year old, my former best milker. Peggy Sue is a very good looking doe, wide front stance, level topline and bottom line, wide rump, excellent fore udder attachment and rear attachment, nice legs and feet, and gives me 2 1/2 # to 3 pounds of milk at a milking. While Holly is smaller all around, but has the same nice features her sister has. But Holly has small teats, I can only get three fingers on each teat, and I milk and milk and milk and milk and milk and when I can not milk any longer, I only have one pound of milk in the bucket. Not only are her teats small, I swear I only get 1/2 teaspoon of milk per squirt. Peggy Sue has larger teats, I can get my full hands on them, and I get much more milk per squirt.

I am convinced that one should wait until the second freshening to fully evaluate a does milking potential. But I get impatient and usually do not wait that long. We have raised goats forever, it seems like. In the past few years, since the recent Boar development, we have taken many goats to the auction. In the past we would not do this for fear they would end up with an inexperienced family situation. But now we are pretty sure they will go for meat, and have used this situation to severly cull our herd. Also, we have found that we have much more fun with a reduced herd size. These days, we like taking only 4 does, plus the buck and wether friend, through a winter. So this makes decision making of who to keep and who to send to the auction, very difficult. I am probably going to send Holly, the small teated and tedious one to milk, to the auction. But I know in the past, a goat like that has blossomed into a wonderful milker in her second lactation. After all these years of breeding, I have does who only produce about 3 pounds of milk at a milking. I let the kids nurse during the day, seperate them at night, and milk the does in the AM. I am sure the does hold back some milk for the kids, but I think I should be doing better than this, milk production wise.

So, who do I keep through the winter this year? The 5 year old for sure, and probably Peggy Sue. I have 3 doe kids, one each out of the 5 year old, Peggy Sue and Holly. They all look very similar. And I just found out I will be getting a Saanen doe kid, a beautiful animal I saw last week. So I am trying to figure out if I should keep Holly and see how she does with her second freshening, but that would mean not keeping any of this years doe kids

So, do you think a small teated doe will have bigger teats with a second freshening? I had decided to send Holly to the auction, but a friend was over and looked at her and she thought I should hang on to her.

[chamoisee]

Sounds like Holly has small orifices like I was talking about. Is the stream needle thin? Her production will pick up next year, but in my experience, tiny orifices stay about the same. I would cull her and her daughter. Put your money and energy into the does that are closer to what you want.

I would rather have a teat that is only an inch long with a good sized orifice than a perfect size and a very small orifice.

[Feral Nature]

I wanted to add this to our conversation. I bought a nice milkgoat a few years back just for a milker when i was gwtting started in dairy goats. She was a productive goat but had had triplets left on to nurse at her original home. Her udder was nice to milk but was severely lopsided because of nursing triplets. The same will happen when a doe nurses a single, one teat will be ignored at the first part of lactation when the kid is real young. if it is not very closely monitored, it will blow and congest.

[goatsareus]

Originally Posted by Feral Nature

I wanted to add this to our conversation. I bought a nice milkgoat a few years back just for a milker when i was gwtting started in dairy goats. She was a productive goat but had had triplets left on to nurse at her original home. Her udder was nice to milk but was severely lopsided because of nursing triplets. The same will happen when a doe nurses a single, one teat will be ignored at the first part of lactation when the kid is real young. if it is not very closely monitored, it will blow and congest.

This is true, and very important to understand. Most kids tend to nurse on the same teat/side. And in my experience, it is very easy to teach a kid that there are two teats, especially with a single kid. But those dern kids learn fast. When I see it dive for the familar teat, I pull them off that side and put his nose in front of the neglected teat. It does not take long for it to start to nurse off both sides, especially after a week or two, when their appetite takes off.

[chamoisee]

Aaaaargh!!!

Why not milk the doe when she freshens???

You bought the doe for milk, yes? They are bred to produce more than their kids eat, yes? Then milk the danged thing!!!

::rant over::

[longhorngal]

Thanks for the interesting posts. I feel encouraged enough to hang onto her until next year as I think she is really nice otherwise. She does have a nice stream and her milk is very good. She did nurse her twin kids for 2 months before I bought her then I milked her for about 2 months and stopped when her production was dropping off. I have another goat to milk and I get plenty from her so decided to stop.
Cara

[DocM]

That kids will ruin an udder is a myth. Poor management ruins udders. I don't pull kids from healthy mothers who have plenty of milk, and I've yet to have a "ruined" udder. I just had two does take reserve and champ BOS who were nursing their kids the day before the show. The key is to keep milking those does - they all produce more milk than their kids can eat. Most yearling milkers, regardless of breed, are going to have small teats. Keep milking them and they will grow, right along with the rest of the goat.

[Feral Nature]

I raise Boers too and some of my experience is with meat goat raising and occasional singletons. It is easy to walk out and find a Boer doe with a blown teat if you are not careful because they are not milked daily. The kid will go to sucking both sides, but sometime the damage is on it's way. Pastured goats need to be checked too.

[MamaDee]

If you want to be impressed with your FF's teats, start with Kinders.

We are milking two kinders right now. And...we just had our first Nubian freshen four days ago. I've been milking her twice a day (she only had a single buck) and her teats seem HUGE to me. I don't know if they are good size or not, but compared to my Kinders they are a breeze.

You can get used to small teats. My fingers and hands are used to the kinders now...I just used the top three fingers for one doe and the other I can only used TWO fingers. She is more challenging. At first when I started her I would squirt milk everywhere. Now I'm a pro with her, too. Although....if my 11 year old son is around and I need one of the girls milked I pick the smallest teated kinder for him. I'm hoping she'll get bigger with age, too. She's a second freshener.

Dee