best way to dry off

[aggieterpkatie]

Here is a good article about drying off. Talks a lot about drastically reducing calorie intake of animals starting about 2 weeks before dry-off.

Here is an excerpt about why to do it cold turkey:

After animals have been on a high fiber, low energy diet for about two weeks, their udder should be assessed for level of continued milk production and mammary health. If all seems well, abrupt dry off should be implemented. This means the animal is milked (by a human or its offspring) a final time, then not again until the next birth and lactation. Some livestock managers will milk once a day for a while, then every-other-day, then stop milking altogether, but this interferes with the major factor responsible for the cessation of milk production: back pressure. Whenever milk accumulates in the udder, it exerts pressure on the milk-producing cells in the mammary tissue, causing them to reduce milk production (this is why animals milked every 8 hours produce more milk than those milked every 12 hoursthere is less back pressure on milk-producing cells). If the pressure persists, the cells will eventually cease milk production altogether, which is exactly the goal of the drying-off process. Dry off is generally non-problematic when cows are producing less than 20#/day and goats are producing less than 3#/day.

 

[Okie Amazon]

I guess cold turkey it is - I didn't milk yesterday and poor Gouda was squirting milk at every step this morning! Brie is still being nursed a bit by Goatburger (rotten little pig-beast) so at least she wasn't miserable. We're thinking that when we send them over to be bred will probably be the best time to send GB to freezer camp anyway. He'll be so freaked out by his mom and buddy being gone he'd probably hurt himself somehow or try to get out of the fence looking for them

 

[ksalvagno]

I treat every goat differently for anything. I had an alpine mix that was one heck of a milker and in my previous post is the thread of how long it took to dry her off. There was no way that I could just stop milking her.

Now I just recently dried off my Nigerians. I went to once a day for a week. Milk production dropped off a little. Then I went to every other day for a week. Milk production dropped off more. Then I went to every third day for a week and milk production dropped off more. Then I didn't milk for a week. Everyone's udders filled up during that time. I milked them out at the end of the week. They have not produced any more milk.

You have been given some good suggestions and now you can figure out what method or combination of methods will work best for your goat. We aren't milking your goat and have never even seen your goat so none of us can give you a definite "this is how you should dry off your doe" answer.

 

[Okie Amazon]

I think the cold-turkey method may be best, at least for Brie, since I really haven't been giving them anything "extra" to eat except at milking times. With Gouda I "might" have to go to every other day, if she seems especially miserable; she's the better milker anyway and she doesn't have a kid taking a sip here and there like Brie does. Mainly I was worried about setting up a mastitis problem. Never have had to deal with it (religious about disinfecting teats after milking) and never want to!

 

[damummis]

I think with my two that Daisy is cold turkey kinda girl and Hazel is a slow wean kinda girl. I will skip tomorrow with her and milk Thurs. Thanks for all the info.

 

[Island Creek Farm]

We were planning on drying ours off and went to once a day. Oddly enough, it has continued and we are still milking once a day three months later. Not because they won't dry up, but because we found it gives us the perfect amount of milk right now and leaves us free for early morning hunting come November. No blowouts, no leaks, we are getting exactly half of what we got previously milking 2x/day. Wanted to post this as I've seen people asking if you *CAN* milk once a day. Apparently you can! In the mornings, udders are soft, half full...by six pm they are nice and full and ready to milk! They are BIG milkers too...Alpines.

When the 3 month pregnant date hits, it's cold turkey though!