Milk production issues

[willowbarnfarm]

It seems I am having a bad year milking wise this year and I cannot figure out what is going on, so I figured I'd pick your brains to see if you all had any suggestions as to what I am doing wrong. I have never, in my five years of milking goats had this problem.
Kidding season in February went great, no problems, except for the fact that my best milker has hard udder syndrome, which I suspect CAE, however she is showing no other signs, but will be tested soon, as soon as I can get her blood tested. And yes, I have taken all precautions with her with the rest of the herd and her kids. Everyone else did fine. I was milking 2 first time freshners, and one who had been milked before. Everyones milk production has dropped dramatically. I started milking at the end of March. I am milking 3 goats and barely getting half a gallon a day. I milk once a day by the way, in the morning. It seems the does milk started dropping dramatically when I took their kids away permanently. The one doe who is still producing, but still not up to what I would call normal, is the only doe who I am milking who has her kid all day except at night. I mean, I barely get a cup or two from the other two does, who at the beginning of milking were giving almost half a gallon a day. They are wormed regularly, the have mineral, and the proper amount of feed daily, and are on great pasture. They are not on hay anymore since they are on pasture, which I have done every year in the past and never had a problem. I tried alfalfa pellets for a month to see if that would make a difference. It made none. We are on different property this year, but surely that can't have affected them this drastically I would think. Now one of my milkers has mastitis so I am down to two goats instead of the 4 I originally planned to milk this year. I am very sad and discouraged and wonder what the heck I could be doing wrong. I have never had this kind of bad luck with milk production. This was going to be THE YEAR, you know, where I could actually start making a little money off cheese and selling milk, but I can hardly feed my family on 1/2 gallon a day. And I'm milking 3 goats! I have two more in line when their kids are old enough, but until then, I have to figure out what I am doing wrong. Any ideas or suggestions on what could be going on? I would appreciate any input.

[steff bugielski]

I would say it is the lack of hay. If the other property had something this one does not they are not getting everything they need. I increased the amount of hay mine get this year, grass hay, and they are really milking great. I have 23 adult goats and they eat 5 small bales a day plus they are out on 2 acres of pasture.
What are you feeding them and how much.

[coso]

Sounds like your telling your does not to milk as much to me. First you took the kids off then you went to once a day milking. This is telling the doe "Hey, my kids are gone I don't need that milk" and then go to once a day milking "Hey, thats just that much more I don't need to produce" . I go to milking once a day about 15 days before dry off and they cut production by almost 1/2 in a weeks time when I do this. But I do this in preparation of dry off and that is what you are telling your does by pulling kids, and going to once a day milking. It's not a bad thing, just if your wanting production not a good thing. My .02

[NYSaanen]

Agree with all of the above. I would try putting them back on some hay and milking twice a day. It is possible that milking them three times a day for a little while could bring their production up a little faster.

[willowbarnfarm]

I really can't believe the hay would make that big of a difference, because I never hay them during once they are on pasture. However, the property we used to live on had more weeds and stuff, the stuff goats love, whereas this property was sown for horses, so its better quality pasture, but maybe not enough roughage kind of stuff like they need. I know they are constantly trying to get out of the fence at the crappy pasture (or so I thought) next to ours. They graze on about 5 acres, and there is only 13 total, so they plenty to eat grass wise. We actually ran out of hay about a month ago, so that is why I tried the alfalfa pellets, but their milk production started dropping way before the hay ran out. Each milker gets about 3 lbs of grain a day, split up into two feedings. This is what I am wondering, wouldn't the alfalfa pellets have made a difference if they were lacking in hay? And if I did try hay, do you think it would get them to where they they should be production wise, or do you think its too late for this year? I am wondering if our property is lacking is some beneficial mineral or something like selenium or something but would that make a production issue and wouldn't their mineral they get make up for that? I just don't understand why hay would make a difference when it never has before, but anything is possible and I will try anything at this point. The milking once a day I have always done, starting at one month after she kids-then sell the boys at three months. I do expect some drop off, but not quite so drastically. It did just dawn on me, just now, the does that could handle the once a day milking before, were extremely heavy producers, and since these two that seem to be drying up so fast are first time fresheners, and a different breed, maybe they are just affected the way you are saying. I think I might try the milking twice a day and see if maybe that makes a difference. Duh, why didn't I think of that. I think I was spoiled before with those heavy milkers!

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

I agree with coso, you are doing a good job of telling your does not to milk. Milking once a day when kids are heavily nursing them and keeping the udder empty is fine, but wean the kids and only milk once a day, your girls won't have wills to milk, production will be poor. Without calcium in their diet, from alfalfa hay or alfalfa pellets, girls simply don't milk to their potential. Now that you have moved you are dealing with defficency in something that you didn't before....too much iron? Not enough copper? high levels of magnesium, no magnesium..your old diet and this once a day milking idea is not going to give you a bumper crop of milk to sell, plus feeding alfalfa pellets and oats and a fat or a protein because your alfalfa pellets aren't 17% is simply cheaper and gives you more milk.

Wormed with what? Are you fecaling? How about a cocci treatment with the move and all the new pasture. Your goats milked better because they had less parasites on the old scraggly tall weeds, now on the improved pasture your parasite issue will be huge. It makes no difference if it's 1 acre or 20, goats congregate in the same areas and reparasitize themselves mostly in feeders in the barn and bedding.

Get the molassas out, get rid of red iron heavy minerals, make sure your mineral is high in copper (chealtes if possible) and start milking twice a day. Figure on a working dairy the second milking is your profit, the first is labor and replacement feed, so you can see how you are going about this backward. Vicki

[celticfarmgal]

I agree with all that has been said above about telling the gals not to milk

Try this milk them 3 times a day for a few days and see if that does not boost your output I did this actually accidentally as I was milking an extra time because she seemed to always be overly full and when I got her from my neighbor she had missed a full days milking now she is giving consistantly more than a gallon a day with morning and evening milkings daily
It is supply and demand working boost the demand by the 3 time daily milking and the supply will follow
then after a few days of this "boosting move to twice a day hope this helps ya