Milk reduction in heat

[ahahahni1]

How do you prevent or help when you loose milk production in the summer. We are down to almost half our milk we usually get since the days have been around 98 degrees. Do you have this problem and what do you do to help?

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

You shouldn't be starting the downward spiral yet. I would worry about your management or their will to milk, alot of goats who are only in milk for the 3 months kids nurse and then dried up, when asked to milk, well they milk, but poorly after that first 3 months. The value of a milker is not the flush of milk the first 12 weeks, it's how fast down the ski slope to not milking she goes....the long steady lactation...sure we deplete in August, but the girls are back to milk pretty well in the cooler evenings and shorter daylight hours of the fall. Only until after breeding in October do we loose half our lactation from what we were at in the spring.

Dealing with your high iron, low copper? Selenium? Got the hot mollassas out of the diet? Good water source? Enough calories on the milkstand...calcium in the diet daily? Fecal sampling for worms, HC are killers out here. Vicki

[susanne]

it will help if you change the water during the day. my does do not want to drink the warm water in summer.

[ahahahni1]

our feed does have molasses in it. Should it not? Our water trough is in the sun hmm maybe thats it too. And also these goats I am milking had their babies in early march. We are used to getting a gallon and day and now down to 2 quarts a day. Gosh I miss my toggenburg. She could do a gallon a day just herself. SNiif Sniff.

[susanne]

if you find the time you might want to look at the USDA data from does on milk test. you will see that most does go down after three month, so that is normal. in the heat and humidity we have right now, milk production suffers a little bit too.
i do not feed molasses, it is sugar and sugar robs the body of vit b. this might lead to lower energy levels. instead of going out to eat, they lay around more.
finally, genetics play a role too. if you bought from show herds, they are not used to have long lactations, show season is over and they are dried off after five month.
what bred are they?