When I touch her udder...

[Mini-M Ranch]

I have a doe that might be bred (the breeder where I got her wasn't sure as she had a buck that jumped the fence). THe breeder told me to check Oreo's udder, and if there were any changes, it might be an indication that she is bed.

At first, Oreo seemed okay with me touching her udder and her belly, etc. The last few days, when I touch her udder or belly, she kind of "hunches", then she will stomp her back foot and walk away. Does she just need to get used to me messing around down there, or might there be something wrong?

The other doe I have doesn't care for being touched on her belly or udder. Well, right now she doesn't want us to pet her anywhere besides nose and cheeks. She had an eye infection that we treated with Bio-Mycin in the eye. She still has not forgiven us. But, she always runs away when you touch her udder. THese are the girls I want to milk in the spring. Should I just keep trying or let them cool out for a while? We got them on 9-5, so maybe they are just not entirely comfortable with us?

The doelings will let us pet them, hold them, will give us hugs and kisses. I guess they are too young for contrariness.

 

[cmjust0]

A little story...

I built our hay feeder out of wood, and slanted the slats so they'd have to cock their heads to the side to get in and eat. Theoretically, this wastes less hay...um, yeah, ok... :/

Anyway, the other night THREE goats managed to get their heads in one opening. They all stopped eating, which we took to be a bad sign. The goat on top couldn't pull his head back for the top bar...the goat on the bottom couldn't pull her head out for the bottom bar...that left the middle goat, who was just being obstinate.

So...hehehe...I reached up under her hindlegs -- from directly behind her -- and started goosing her udder to make her want to get out of there.

She proceeded to shift ALL her weight to her front legs, rare up, and kick the living snot out of me -- BAM BAM BAM RIGHT LEFT RIGHT LEFT BOTH BOTH BOTH RIGHT LEFT, etc -- about 427 times, directly in the chest, before I even realized what was happening.

I finally got out of the way, she calmed down and jerked her head out of the feeder, the other two cleared off, and everything was fine...except for the big bruises on my chest.

The moral of the story is that some goats REEEEEEEEALLY don't like to have their udders messed with. The 'hunch, buck, & run' thing you described sounds very much like a reaction I've seen many times, even in yearlings and dry does.

So long as they're not hot and hard and don't have any edema, I think you're OK...medically speaking, that is..

As for milking...have fun with that!

Seriously, though..training a goat to milk is always a challenge.. My suggestion would be to put $20 into a nice velcro hobble, or make one yourself if you're handy like that..

 

[ksalvagno]

The breeders that I have talked to say they start young. They put them in the milking stand and feed them there all the time. While they are eating they touch their udders. Supposedly by the time they are ready to milk, they are fine with milking.

At least you can do that with any doelings that you have in the future. I would just work with them every day. If you have a milk stand, start doing it with these girls.

Cmjust0, that just had to be so funny after it all happened. One of those things you laugh about later. I'm guessing you just had that "deer in the headlights" look when you got beat up since it happened so quickly.

 

[cmjust0]

More or less. Once I got out of the way and they got cleared out of the rack, I looked over at my wife to say "HOLY CRAP!", but she was standing there with this half-agape, half-smirk look on her face like she wanted to make sure everything was ok before she dropped and roflcoptered around in the barnstall.

To be fair to the kicky goat, et al...I think they were all sorta quietly freaking out already, in a coordinated sort of a way.. Like, okay, I dunno how we did this, but if you don't move, and I don't move, and we all just stand here calmly for a minute, maybe this won't get worse.

...which is fine...until you goose someone's udder from behind where she can't see you...

To be fair to the gooser, it did serve the purpose.

 

[Ariel301]

Do you have a milkstand with a good sturdy headgate? If so, put her in that with some good snacks while you work with her udder. If you're going to milk her, I'd suggest starting as soon as you can training her to accept the touch. Give her lots of good food to eat while you're working, and run your hands all over her, petting her. If she has a favorite itchy spot, start there, and gradually move towards whatever spot she doesn't like--the udder, in this case. When she fights you, keep your hand in the offensive spot until she settles down--she has to learn that you are going to touch her and she needs to deal with it. When she settles down, remove the hand and praise her, make a big fuss over her, let her know how good she is. Repeat process until she allows the touching. This is a technique generally used in training young horses, but it works on goats too.

If she is really kicky, you can use a milking hobble. They sell them at goat supply places, or you can just make your own...I use a soft cotton lead rope tied very tightly around both hind legs (tie around each leg individually, not both legs in one loop) just above the hocks, leaving a long tail end of the rope that I can use to tie both legs back to a post, so they cannot kick forward at all. I had to use this last spring for a 2 year old doe that was very badly behaved...we think she had neurological issues as she was just completely unable to learn anything, she would get to where she was ok with what I taught her, then the next day it was completely gone from her brain.

 

[treeclimber233]

My doe would not let me touch her bag at all before she had her babies. When they were born I milked her a little right in the stall with the newborn babies. She stood fine for me to milk her after that. Did she think now that I was her baby? Kinda like imprinting a newborn? And as for the hunching I think you might be seeing her accepting you touching her bag. The hunching exposes the udder to make milking easier. I have handled my does daughter's udder from early on and she hunches when I touch her udder.

 

[Roll farms]

Even when my well-trained milkers are heavy pregnant, they get downright snarky at me when I touch their udders...which I do daily to check for fullness / tightness.
Then 5 minutes after they kid they're trying to get to the milkstand for relief.

Foxy, a first freshener who kidded the other day...Would stomp her feet and just make a fuss when I got near hers. She still hasn't mastered getting on / off the milkstand, but 2 days in and she's standing to be milked like a pro.
Just needs to figure out there's no way she can go forward, through the head catch, to get off the stand.

I guess, if I have a point to these ramblings, it's that their behavior before kidding isn't necessarily indicative of their behavior post-kidding.

I do think getting them on the stand and getting them used to being touched from a young age helps...but all bets are off when they're fat / miserable / preggo.

PATIENCE is key when training a milker.

 

[freemotion]

Thanks for the heads-up. I will be dealing with my first first-freshener in the spring, assuming she is preggers. She is such a doll, but after many years of working with horses, I know that behavior in one situation often has no bearing on behavior in another situation!

 

[cmjust0]

Well, here's my $.02 worth of guesstimating based on my own empirical/anecdotal observations:

I've heard more stories about snarky goats getting sweeter after kidding than the other way around.

Now...you should take that info for exactly what it cost ya.