milking doe before kidding

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I have a doe due anytime now. Her udder is so huge should I milk out a little just to relive some of the pressure? Do they have colosturm in the milk before they kid or does it come in after they kid?

Thanks

-- Pamela (pmsmith@hevanet.com), April 17, 2002

Answers

Hi Pamela, usually when somebody complains that their doe is bursting :) by the time they get an email from us, they have already kidded! But yes they do have clostrum in their udder before they kid, some will say that it isn't true colostrum until they kid because of the hormones. Now how does that make any sense? The colostrum in the udder today and tommorrow is the colostrum that the babies drink, after she kids she makes more colostrum but it isn't first colostrom. And birthing hormones do not infuse the udder with anything especially in colostrum that is already there! So milk her out to make her more comfortable, it will also give you the time to heat treat it if you do that. Freeze it so it doesn't go bad in the fridge if you did guess to early, and then just start her on the normal milking routine, though I do not ask mine to jump up and down off the milkstands. We premilked a doe for years because she always had so much edema in her udder. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), April 17, 2002.

Yes! To avoid edema in a doe that routinely bags up and gets uncomfortable a while before birth, milk her out and save the clostrum. Better to do a little more work than to have a meaty, or fatty udder with less production later.

Dennis & Joe

(I've been tending not to include Joe lately. He's got his lists, they argue a lot, and I've got my one;-) I'll try to remedy that!

-- Dennis Enyart (westwoodcaprine@yahoo.com), April 21, 2002.


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