? about doe raised kids and milking

[hopin2havfun]

I see that some of you milk your does while leaving your kids on her 24/7. I am interested in doing this with my doe this year. Are there any tricks to it...I know that is how its done in nature but could someone give me some details. Last year her kids were pooping yellow toothpaste stuff (my MIL ex-dairy farm girl said it was scours) so we pulled them and bottle fed them. We had a total of 4 bottle babies last year and 2 kids that were on their dam all day then locked up at night then we milked the doe in the A.M. The bottle babies grew WAY slower than the nursed ones.

I guess my concern is if i leave the kids on the doe then what prevents them from getting scours? Last year by separating them at night or by bottle feeding them the scours left quickly.


Thanks in advance

Jen

[LoneStrChic23]

I have a doe I milk and leave a kid on 24/7. I milked her out at least twice a day starting, when her kids were 2 days old. The only time I've seen a scoured kid was because it was not started on coccidia prevention at 21 days old (treatment is 5 days in a row, repeated every 21 days) and I've seen poorly growing kids with scours that were being raised on Milk Replacer instead of real milk.

My bottle buck is over 70lbs at 13 weeks old.....certainly not poor growing, and I bought him at barely 2 weeks old as a bottle baby (He was raised on store bought whole cows milk until I had plenty of goat's milk, then I switched him to goat's milk....no milk replacers used here)....but even bottle kids get the same strict coccidia prevention mentioned above because I want growthy kids I can breed their 1st year and they can't grow well with an untreated parasite load.

[Alice In TX/MO]

Never had scours in a dam raised kid. The first week or so, yellow toothpaste poo is normal. It's the milk poo. After they start eating solid food, it changes to little tiny goat berries.

I pen the kids at night starting at two weeks, milk in the mornings, turn the kids with their dams.

Two of my does are at friends' houses, and both of them have kids on them and are being milked twice a day and are making 3 quarts a day. They don't pen kids.

[southerngurl]

Mind you if you keep kids on them they will eventually eat everything she makes unless maybe you have one kid on a two gallon a day milker. But once a kid gets some size and is growing fast, they can eat over a gallon a day easy. For the first month or so you will generally get milk, but after that you have to pen them away overnight or something.

[April]

That yellow toothpaste poop is normal when they're just a few days old, from the colostrum in the milk. Were they older when you saw the yellow poo?

[Lada]

Like others have said, the yellow poo is perfectly normal when they are only getting milk to drink. It looks just like a human baby's poo when they're breastfed.

I have no idea how these people are leaving the kids on the moms 24/7 and still getting milk. My does that are dam-raising their kids get milked in the morning after the kids are separated all night. If I forget to lock up the kids, or if I'm lazy and want the morning off, there's almost no milk in there, even though they are eating the same thing. The kids just take whatever she makes.

[hopin2havfun]

OK...so the yellow poo is not scours. Her kids last year had the yellow poo after less than 24 hours. They would try to lie down to take a nap and she kept pawing at them to get up and eat (for her own relief). So if my doe is a high production milker I might still get a decent amount of milk leaving the kids on 24/7...or after 2-4 weeks separate at night. Is this right?

Would she produce more if I milked her out twice a day so that by the time the kids are weaned she has lots? Or am I just going to have hungry kids? Is is possible to help her make more if I created more "demand". I guess that all depends on her potential.

Thanks
Jen

[LoneStrChic23]

My girl had triplets... I kept one kid. I milked her twice a day, everyday on a schedule starting on the second day after she kidded.

Her kids were born March 11, 2011.... I leave the kid on 24/7 & I'm averaging 1 gallon per day from her.

I would definately milk her twice a day, then if you want, when they are older you can pen them at night and milk in the mornings. That was my plan with Sabrina, but I'm pleased with the gallon per day so I'm not going to fuss with catching and penning the kid.

[Pony]

Trub kidded in Feb and has her doeling Airin' on her during the day. Like Alice, I pen the kid up at night, milk Trub first thing in the morning, and then leave Airin' on her the rest of the time.

I was milking in the evening, too, but as Airin' grew, the evening milking diminished. I still get a half gallon in the morning, and that's good for us.

Next year, though, we'll have 4 does in milk.

Anyone know of a cheap deal on a machine milker?

[Lada]

No, the yellow poop is not scours. Scours is super runny, almost watery poop, and it's not yellow, it's usually greenish.

I leave the kids with mom 24/7 the first two weeks, and I don't milk during that time unless she just has one kid and the kid is only eating off one side, leaving her lopsided, or something like that. You don't want to drink the milk the first 2 weeks anyway, it tastes funny with the colostrum in it.

Starting at 2 weeks, I pen kids up at night, milk in the morning and then turn the kids loose with the moms for the rest of the day.

If you just have a single kid, maybe you could milk and still leave the kid on his mom and get enough milk for your own use. I almost always have twins, and they drink all the milk she makes if I leave them on her.