Once a Day Milking

[christelle]

Thoughts out there on once a day milking? I'm thinking of trying it this year. If It turns out to not be enough milk, can I switch to twice a day? Is either any difference for the health of the goat?

[mygoat]

You can milk once a day but it is not going to to be top production. You can try switching to 2x per day but the increase may not be worth the extra effort. For FF in high production I would suggest milking 2x per day for a while because high producing animals can be damaged from producing too much milk. Really depends on your does. I wouldn't try it out the gate with my doe who hits over 2gal/day, but on a FF I had this year it would probably have worked well.

[christelle]

Hmm. I have Nubians. 4 of them will be FF so not sure of their production, but the other 2 gave about 1 gallon a day, so they're not heavy heavy milkers.

[marusempai]

If it were me, I would start out milking twice a day, then taper back to once a day, if that is what you really want to do. Slow and steady is the way to go, just right after they kid they will make as much as they are going to make, so it is better starting with more milkings than you need, to make sure that they don't hurt themselves.

[Clovers_Clan]

Will they be nursing kids until 3-4 months? If so once per day is probably all you can push them until weaning. If you are bottle raising or selling bottle babies, production is definitely there for twice per day. In fact probably advisable to prevent over-uddering.

After weaning and peak, production varies greatly with genetics and management. The ideal is to balance between peak production and labor. I milk twice per day after weaning until production drops to the point where their udder is half capacity at milking time and there is no benefit to milking more frequently. For most does(weaning babies at 3-4 months) this extends about 2 months and increases production by about 1/3 for that time period.

If I'm retaining a doeling and don't need the extra milk or don't want to mess with a second milking I wait to wean until production slows to that half capacity mark. And if there is any question a doe might be under-condition by breeding time I just drop back to once per day after weaning. Every doe is different, mileage may vary.

[Pony]

I love once-a-day milking. We'll have three does in milk this year, God willing, and I'm sure we'll get more than enough for the kids and for the house.

Once the kids wean, I may go to twice-a-day. We've done it before, but like I said, with three in milk, I don't think we'll need to.

[Backfourty,MI.]

I dam raise our babies & like Pony, I Love once a day milking. I leave the kids with their dams all day long & separate them at night. Milk the dam out in the a.m. then put the kids back in with her.
I don't start milking at all usually until the kids are 2 to 4 weeks of age.

[christelle]

That's exactly what I was going to do, Backfourty,MI.

[creeklady2000]

that is exactly what I do I leave the kids on and separate at night after 3-4 weeks and then I get the milk in the am and I only have to milk once a day unless I have to bottle feed for some reason I prefer not to , and with milk 3-5 does I don't need that milk from milking twice a day after weaning then I go to once a day but I leave the kids on for a while unless I need more milk for another animal or something ,, works great.

[Awnry Abe]

Ditto MyGoat on the advice. We do OAD on both cows and goats. We start out twice a day and wait for a prolonged period of production droop, usually caused by hot dry weather, to transition to OAD. A neighboring dairy does OAD right out of the gate, but he claims that you must only do so with a first freshener. It's too hard at that point in lactation on one that produces heavy, he says. I've never transitioned back to 2X a day. My suspicions are that for a long time, you would get a very meager amount on one of those milkings.

[menollyrj]

We also milk once a day by putting kids up overnight. This has the added advantage of allowing us to go out of town if we choose to because we aren't "chained" to milking. Just leave the kids out all the time and they take care of the morning milking while we are away.