Grandma with a will to milk!

[manygoatsnmore]

My LaMancha does are mother, daughter and granddtr. (Maggie, Secret, and Libby). I noticed soon after Libby was born that Grandma Maggie would "babysit" for Secret, and that Libby spent as much time with Maggie as with Secret. Over the 1st month, I also started noticing that Libby would attempt to nurse from Maggie - and Maggie was letting her. I just figured she was going through the motions, as Mags had been dry for nearly 2 years. A few weeks ago, I separated Maggie from Secret and Libby.

By that evening, Maggie had a nice udder bagged up! We milked her and got more than a quart. When she is away from Libby, she is now giving us more than a half-gallon a day, without having freshened. She was a 12# a day milker on her 2nd freshening (Secret's kidding), so it's considerably down from her peak, but certainly not bad for an extended (or resurrected, more like) lactation. Also a nice surprise to have another doe in milk, and certainly explains why Libby is growing like a weed and is a butterball! If she's getting that much from her ff momma, and again from Grandma, that's a whole lot of milk for a 4 month old doeling. She eats browse, alfalfa hay and all that milk.

[sungirl]

I remember knowing a horse breeder who had a mare come back in milk after the foal's mother had to be put down due to a broke leg. This mare had foaled & weaned 7+ months before that but nursed the foal to weaning.

Patty.

[Sweet Goats]

I have a friend that has Pygmys and every time one of them hears a baby, she gets a bag. She has never been bred either. Matter of fact she was at a show over the weekend and she was knocked down because her utter was not evenly shaped.

[Freeholder]

Humans can do this, too -- if a woman has had a baby, it's possible to get her milk to come back in, with patience and persistence, in order to nurse another baby.

I've even heard of a man developing milk for his baby after his wife died, when they were stranded on a remote island (this was during the Viking era).

Kathleen

[Cygnet]

I had a mare who came into milk once when another mare had a baby across the aisle. My mare desperately wanted that baby and spent hours calling to it. She was an old broodmare ... I sure felt bad for her. (Though it was also kind of a pain in the rear, because she got really barn sour, too! LOL.)

[MissMenagerie]

Can I send my dry doe over so Maggie can talk to her? Maybe she could convince my doe that just going into milk is easier than going through 5 months of pregnancy!

[manygoatsnmore]

Originally Posted by MissMenagerie

Can I send my dry doe over so Maggie can talk to her? Maybe she could convince my doe that just going into milk is easier than going through 5 months of pregnancy!

LOL! If only it was that easy!

I thought it was really neat to watch the family dynamics even before I realized that Maggie was back in milk. I've noticed before that the related does in a herd hang together and really seem to understand "family", long beyond the point of weaning. They are competitive with unrelated does, even when they have been raised in the same herd, but I don't see the related does ramming each other for dibs on the best spot at the feeder, for example.

Have any of the rest of you noticed that, or do I just have oddballs here?

[CookingPam777]

With mine it's food or murder. Just ask my little doeling whos head got stepped on ( which landed in the mud) over food. Also I had a little buckling that this goat would spend all it time ramming to make sure it did not get a single bite. Coarse I tried to stop it the best I could but yeah my goats aren't nice about the food no matter what.

[fishhead]

I wonder if this could be done deliberately to get a goat to start producing milk? They wouldn't have to go through the stress of pregnancy so that would eliminate some health issues.

[Jan in CO]

This is really interesting! I read one of the other posts where someone had asked if it were possible to bring a doe back into milk, and I'd wondered if I could do that with my best milker, since I now have three calves to feed. The consensus was that you COULD NOT bring one back in that had been dry for two months. I've been graining and patiently milking Luna, and have her up to a whopping cup per milking--way down from her usual almost a gallon, but at least it's SOMETHING. Your experience proves it can be done.

Our oldest Togg doe, Ali stole one of the other doe's baby last year, and attempted to nurse him, but would allow him to go back to his real mother just long enough to eat, then come back to her. A week later, she kidded with her own baby, but continued to keep the stolen buckling. She just wanted a baby so badly, like the mare! She's one that you cannot tell until just before kidding that she is going to kid, so help me! Jan in Co

[fishhead]

Have you tried bumping Luna's udder like a kid would do when nursing? I wonder if that might help stimulate lactation.

[christie]

Where I got my goats, The breeder said his likes to stay in there families too! I saw 5 different lil groups of mom, daughter/ babies. Kind of cute!