# Pregnant Doe Leaking Milk



## rachels.haven (Jul 20, 2019)

What is the protocol for a pregnant doe that is leaking milk?
She should have 47 days to go till due date based on her last heat and buck exposure (and she's a doe that cycles fairly loudly with dramatic changes in behavior and lots of blubbering, I put a buck in with her, and she was bred, so I'm fairly certain that was a heat). Over the last few days she's filled almost to bursting, her teats have elongated, and where she lays down she makes sticky, yucky colostrum puddles.
Should I be cleaning, milking and dipping her with the milkers or just letting nature take its course and letting her be a sticky mess? I'm not opposed to freezing colostrum from her and feeding it to her kids when they come, I just really don't want mastitis. She has such a long way to go still.


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## Hens and Roos (Jul 21, 2019)

@OneFineAcre @Goat Whisperer @Southern by choice @babsbag @B&B Happy goats 

you could probably gently clean her to help prevent possible infection, I've tagged a few others as well.


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## B&B Happy goats (Jul 21, 2019)

I haven't  had this particular  experience, ......
 but I would clean her and milk her then freeze for the kids.....then keep extra for my own use.
Hope you find the answer that you need


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## OneFineAcre (Jul 21, 2019)

Never seen that happen so I can't say for sure.
I've had some get pretty full that far in advance, but never leak.
I would think it would be a good idea to keep her clean and maybe dip teats or spray with Fight Bac


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## rachels.haven (Jul 21, 2019)

Alright! I may milk and freeze a little bit if she is leaking when she lays down again, but tonight I gave her an udder wash and a spray.

I may have a new problem on my hands. I caught one of the does her age nursing her tonight-and the pregnant doe is letter her. I think I'm going to collect a little colostrum for the freezer in case this becomes a problem and potentially think about selling the nursing doe, who also nurses my oldest doe already in milk. She's just getting milk all around from everyone as an adult.


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## B&B Happy goats (Jul 22, 2019)

I hope she has some colostrum  left in her to freeze if the other goat has been on her.....and I got to agree with you , someone has to go to in order to break that nursing cycle....so sorry you are going through so many critter challenges  right now .....I feel for you


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## rachels.haven (Jul 22, 2019)

Thank you. It is stressful, but as long as no critters are dying all over the place it could be worse. Or at least that's what I'm telling myself. 

I'm hoping that by selling Olivia, my adult nurser, she will wind up on the bottom of a pecking order somewhere and the other new herd's does will do what my standard doe does when Livy tries and she will get butted across the pen for attempted milk stealing until she quits. Makes me wonder if this is why people bottle feed.

Actually, my older doe in milk might wind up listed too depending on what the very pregnant doe has, but Olivia can not go with her obviously.  I've been milking a doe with 1" teats for two years and I'm not sure I want to do that anymore. She's a tiny 50lbs doe, so she's in proportion, but I'd rather have over height, heavy goats with 2-3" teats than have to do the 1 or two finger milk dance for the rest of this goat's life. So we may have lots of hay money this fall (again, that's what I'm telling myself).


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## B&B Happy goats (Jul 22, 2019)

I understand, I had to do some major goat changes here also, some that were absolutely  my favorites. ...but you have to do it sometimes to get to where you want to be with your animals .....good luck in your decision  making process


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## rachels.haven (Jul 27, 2019)

I wanted to update this. I've been graining the leaking doe daily, and if she has milk leaking I wash her, milk her quickly out, and spray her. She gets quite tight and full, but has nice long teats with good orifices and a soft teat texture-basically a dream to milk and it goes very quickly. By the microwave test it's still colostrum, so it goes in the freezer as backup. I have day one colostrum saved from another kidding as dual backup. I will probably use that first.

Adult nursing doe is still here but looks to be just beginning to bag up in preparation to kid so we decided to keep her for a little longer and see if things straighten out. If not, we'll sell her when her kids wean.

So far, so good.

Fun teat picks for kicks. Not bad for a FF, prefreshening udder, in my very uneducated opinion.




 


Teats full of milk on a non-leaking day.


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## B&B Happy goats (Jul 27, 2019)

Very nice


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## grammyg3x (Jul 27, 2019)

I have a doe, who unbeknown to us, was a year round milker.  We bred her and she just never dried off and about a month before she was to freshen she started to leak.  So we would milk her totally out and a few days later she was filled again.  We continued this regimen until she freshened and everything is as it should be now.  She is a very strong milk producer and my guess is she will continue to milk through this year.  Now I will be prepared and I don't think I will breed her.  If she dries off I think I will let her body regroup from the stress of producing milk and kids for this year.


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