Donna- That is extreemly peculiar about your experience having a doe bred twice!
Has anyone else had anything like this happen before?

Morgan- all of that sounds pretty normal for goats, who are peculiar. ;-) I
agree with Donna as to milking/kids, feeding while bred, etc. I might add though
that you could look for possible infection preventing her from getting bred. I
had a doe last year that this seemed to be the case with (discharge, etc.). She
does seem to be bred this year (I will have to wait and see for sure, of
course).

Take care!!

--- On Sat, 11/29/08, Donna R. Myers-Raybon <safehavennubians@...> wrote:

From: Donna R. Myers-Raybon <safehavennubians@...>
Subject: [raw_goatmilk] Re: milking - hard to start
To: raw_goatmilk@yahoogroups.com
Date: Saturday, November 29, 2008, 7:42 PM

Yes, your doe's lopsided udder is most likely caused by her having
only one kid nursing. Even with multiple kids, they sometimes will
all favor one side. Kids like FAST flow, so if one teat orifice is a
bit smaller than the other, then kids will nurse side with larger
(faster) orifice.

If you are feeding your doe properly, then you don't have anything to
worry about as far as 'depriving' in utero kids for frist 90 days of
gestation. The last 60 days of gestation the doe needs to be dry so
that she can get into good body condition and make good colostrum.
But, I have had does who just would not dry up and I had to keep
milking them. They stayed in good body condition because I knew how
to feed them. I did use additional colostrum, though, from other
sources just in case doe's own wasn't of high enough quality.

Goats are peculiar and can show heat even when bred. I have actually
had a doe breed, come back in 21 days later, breed again and then
give birth on first due date to full term doeling and a 21 day early
buckling. The doeling was full sized 8 pounds, healthy, normal and
grew up to be a NICE doe herself. The buckling lived about an
hour. He was about 3 pounds, had almost no body fat, with very fine
velveteen like hair and a cleft palate.

Donna
Safehaven Nubians
Dandridge, TN





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