Ok to give does a season off?

[AuntKitty]

Both of my 4yo Nubian does had difficult kiddings this year and each lost one kid. I am thinking of giving them next year off from kidding. I will have a yearling doe ready to kid next year and that should handle our minimum milk needs and give us a kid fix

Will it harm the does or hurt their future production to take a year off?

TIA, Kitty

[GoldenWood Farm]

I don't see why it would hurt them any. I would just keep an eye on their weight to make sure they don't get to fat from taking a year off (my girls can get fluffy if I am not careful when not milking). Do you have access to a Nigerian Dwarf buck? If so you could consider breeding them mini.

I have done that with my does if they have a hard kidding and they do fine the next kidding. The kids are much smaller so it makes them easier to deliver also they don't weigh as much so carrying them to term is easier for them as well. I finally retired my two oldest girls but their last two kiddings I just bred them mini to ensure they had easy kiddings and they did wonderfully. One of the does had two really bad deliveries in two years due to the fact that she throws such big kids so breeding her mini was the perfect solution.

Either way it won't hurt in my opinion if you feel they really need a year off. Can I ask what happened that made their deliveries so hard?

Justine

[AuntKitty]

The real problem is that the buck and bucklings made a jail break over July 4th weekend this year and I didn't lute the does like I now know I should have. So my one doe had triplets this past February and quads (one did not survive) about 2 weeks ago. She did dry up right away once bred in July, but that's alot for her body to handle in a year. My does are well conditioned. I feed alfalfa pellets all year so I am not that worried about calcium, but it just seems like alot for a couple of pet does to go through. The other doe had a kid stuck that I couldn't feel and the consensus was to just watch her. The vet never called me back from an emergency page so I spent a long cold night in the barn watching her strain and push without knowing if it was just the placenta or not, until the dead kid came out and then a live one.

I guess I am just a little freaked out as these are the first problems I have ever had with my goats. I know I would want to take a break if I made 7 babies in a little over a year

Kitty

[saanengirl]

Milk them through if they are still in milk. That will keep them from getting overweight, and is easier on their bodies than kidding. No need to have them kid again in a year. This way you will have plenty of milk and fewer worries.

[HappyFarmer]

I don't think it will hurt them, but I also don't think they need it if they are in good condition. Why not give 2 a rest this year, 2 next year?

If each one lost a kid (4 kids?), I'd be critiquing my management. Could be something simple, might be something complex. Worth a re-evaluaiton anyways.

HF

[Blue Run Farm]

Maybe I am crazy, but I am up to keeping three does with the express purpose of giving them time off. I figure I can breed two each year and each doe gets every third year off. Plus that gives me an extra "aunty" to be with the babies overnight when I separate them to milk the moms in the morning. I feel safer with a full size goat in the pen so the babies are less of a target for foxes and such. But I am only in my third year of this, so I may be nuts!

[mygoat]

There is no benefit to giving them a year off. You loose a year of production, kid sales, and most likely unless the doe is physically ill or injured at breeding season, there is no reason to not breed her that year.

If your does are fat next season, they may have trouble settling or have kidding problems because they're overweight. IMO skipping a year doesn't give them any benefit to 'heal' after a troublesome kidding (I'd say unless severe infection or injury was incurred, most does are perfectly back to normal within a month or so even after a 'difficult' kidding.) NOR does it make it less likely to lose kids during kidding or prevent a troublesome kidding.

If you don't want the trouble of raising kids, I'd milk through. Not all goats will do very well milking through, and those are the ones that I'd breed back this year. If a couple of them are still producing better than the rest, you could consider milking those through.

[Oat Bucket Farm]

We are getting two more does in the spring for just this reason. We are going to breed two and milk two through. Dry off the two we milked through in the early summer and let them rest until fall when we will breed them and milk the other two through. That way we always have milk through the winter and the girls get a few months rest every other year.

[AuntKitty]

Originally Posted by Blue Run Farm

Maybe I am crazy, but I am up to keeping three does with the express purpose of giving them time off. I figure I can breed two each year and each doe gets every third year off. Plus that gives me an extra "aunty" to be with the babies overnight when I separate them to milk the moms in the morning. I feel safer with a full size goat in the pen so the babies are less of a target for foxes and such. But I am only in my third year of this, so I may be nuts!

I don't think you are crazy at all. In fact, this is what I am planning to do, but my third doe is only 9 months old now and she won't be bred until next year.

Now that I have cattle panels for all my fencing on the buck pen, I think next year I won't breed until November for April kids. I haven't had kids that late before and I'll try it and see how it works out. Then my 2 does (only have 2 adult does) will have gone a year without kidding.

I don't think its my management. The deaths were strange. The first doe had quads and the largest buckling was dead and not even cleaned off. She had given none of her usually reliable signs of being about to go into labor so I hadn't even separated her. Normally it would have been 10 days to 2 wks after she started showing signs. Her ligs weren't even gone, no goop, no nesting, no isolation and talking to the belly - nothing. Then one morning I go out to feed and there are 3 live kids and the one dead one. I think they came quickly and she just lost track of the one buckling in the dark and the rush. The other doe's kidding I talked about in the other thread last week. She might have been too fat LAST year but not this year with the drought and low amount of browse. She refuses to eat anything but peanut hay leaves so she lost weight this year and was in good shape prior to kidding.

I think the odds just caught up with me and after 3 kiddings from each doe going like clockwork, it was time for something to go wrong.

Thanks for your thoughts everyone!

Kitty

[saanengirl]

Kitty, April kids are wonderful. The does do well because they have all the fresh new browse, and the kids won't get cold. At the same it is still comfortably cool for both does and kids.

[KSALguy]

haveing two breedings in one year is not a bad thing, if she is in condition enough to come into season a seccond time she is fine, giveing them a break has the potential of causeing more issues than not, and it wont fix any of the issues you think you have, i agree 100% with what MyGoat said, eather milk through or breed them back, no reason not to take them out of production if you want them to produce anything for you,

[mpete]

Originally Posted by mygoat

There is no benefit to giving them a year off. You loose a year of production, kid sales, and most likely unless the doe is physically ill or injured at breeding season, there is no reason to not breed her that year.

If your does are fat next season, they may have trouble settling or have kidding problems because they're overweight. IMO skipping a year doesn't give them any benefit to 'heal' after a troublesome kidding (I'd say unless severe infection or injury was incurred, most does are perfectly back to normal within a month or so even after a 'difficult' kidding.) NOR does it make it less likely to lose kids during kidding or prevent a troublesome kidding.

If you don't want the trouble of raising kids, I'd milk through. Not all goats will do very well milking through, and those are the ones that I'd breed back this year. If a couple of them are still producing better than the rest, you could consider milking those through.

I agree... also, if you think about it, Boer goats are regularly bred soon after kids are weaned.
I would suggest breeding them if they come into season when the kids are 2 months, and dry her up 2 months before kidding date. I have done that with one of my nubians. Everything went very well.

[Hollowdweller]

In my experience what will hurt your does future production is drying them off early.

That seems to permanently make their subsequent lactations steeper.

I usually milk my goats at least 305 days with rare exceptions and often milk them for several years without re breeding.

Every 5 years I just take the year off from milking. I don't notice that when I freshen them again that they give any less.

However don't dry a goat off early especially a yearling.

[Laverne]

Continuing to milk is healthier for the udder since it keeps bacteria flushed away twice a day, helping to prevent mastitis. Once a day milking has bacteria sitting for 24 hours in the udder, so raises the risk some. Either way, there is some bacteria present. So if drying up an udder, a mastitis prevention is used, like Tomorrow dry udder treatment.

[moonspinner]

I have a couple senior does I am giving a year off, as I've been overwhelmed a bit with other responsibilities and don't want to go over my kid limit. I have never had overweight does so that won't be an issue. While there may be no real benefit to holding them over a year, I don't see a major problem either.