[ThistleMary]

Woah, I thought you wanted to milk them? It isn't really like the fairy tales or Mother earth News magazines where you can just leave the kids on Mama and milk them also. In fact... you asked about the uneven udder on my own doe. I tried leaving the kids on, and that's what happens. The kids ruin good udders. The mom's won't let their milk down when you go to milk them if feeding kids, either.

Personal experience speaking here. I have tried about every possible arrangement to keep kids on does AND milk, to save myself the headache of bottle feeding kids. It's sort of a no-go.

Well, I read in a couple of books (and ME News, lol) that some people just separate kids from moms for about 6-8 hours (I was thinking I could keep them in separate pens in the barn overnight, milk the mom in the morning for me and let the kids nurse during the day as they wanted in the pasture???) I didn't realize kids would cause udders to physically change. Oops. I'm glad you said that. That does change things. Guess I'll be doing more bottle feeding than I thought. Not a problem (hurray, I'm retired!) but yeah. I didn't realize you can't leave the kids on mama. Thanks for sharing that.

 

[ShannonR]

Well, I read in a couple of books (and ME News, lol) that some people just separate kids from moms for about 6-8 hours (I was thinking I could keep them in separate pens in the barn overnight, milk the mom in the morning for me and let the kids nurse during the day as they wanted in the pasture???) I didn't realize kids would cause udders to physically change. Oops. I'm glad you said that. That does change things. Guess I'll be doing more bottle feeding than I thought. Not a problem (hurray, I'm retired!) but yeah. I didn't realize you can't leave the kids on mama. Thanks for sharing that.

If you don't mind a drastic loss of milk production and lactation issues in your does, then It's possible. The kids are really rough on their mom's udder though, all of that butting and such causes infections injured teats and all sorts of other problems.

Separating for 6-8 hours usually got me about a pint of milk, and a doe who did NOT want to give it up because she would rather feed her kids with it than feed you.
What kinda-sorta worked was leaving the kids on full time for 8 weeks, weaning a little early and then milking the doe. I was in school full time and had a barely yearling offspring of my own I was taking care of last year, that's my excuse for doing so. But she did get the beginnings of an udder infection and the uneven udder because of that, and didn't produce as much as she normally does when she freshens. She also got a sort of nasty attitude about being milked that she had never displayed before, stamping her feet and acting like a general donkey on the milk stand. In retrospect, it was more trouble than it was worth.

 

[Alice In TX/MO]

In my experience, penning the kids at night and milking in the morning works fine. No damaged udders. No problem.

 

[ThistleMary]

Well that's interesting; it seems that allowing does to milk their kids may or may not "damage" or change udders. Thank you both for feedback. I guess that's one for trial and error.

But back to original question... if you were in my position, wanting to obtain and breed up an excellent milking line of Nigerian Dwarf goats, what would you go after?

 

[Alice In TX/MO]

Depends on the doe, how many and what gender the kids are, etc, etc.

 

[copperhead46]

You would look for young does with excellant udders and good temperment and conformation. They should come from very good mothers who are good producers. When looking for a buck, find one whose mother had a very good udder and was a good producer. You want to buy the very best that you can to start with, saves a lot of years of breeding for what you want.