A goat tradition
A club I once attended
had a saying, "If we hold an event twice in a row, then it becomes a
tradition." With a goat, this is even more true.
After tethering our girls
after the human lunch for three days running, during which time we
allowed the caprines to graze until Abigail could barely waddle home
afterwards, our goats decided there was no point in eating morning hay.
Why not just wait for afternoon rye and clover? So, on day four, when
life got in the way and I didn't let the girls out until 4 pm, the
moaning and bellyaching coming from the goat area was overwhelming.
Abigail told me she was starving to death...even though she still had plenty of hay in the manger.
Unfortunately,
it's not quite the season for daily gorging yet. Over the course of
three short days, our goat herd mowed down all of the high rye areas in
our yard, and now there are just patches of newly growing grasses and
clover for them to eat. I guess our girls will have to make do with
half-full bellies for another week or two until the grass catches up
with the overwintering grains. (Or they'll have to resort to eating hay.
Horrors!)
As a side note, I was
considering starting to milk Abigail out in the evenings after our milk
production nearly doubled one day this week to a pint during our morning
milking. But when I got our doe on the milking stand that evening, I
discovered that her udders were much emptier than I've ever seen them.
In other words, I'm now confident that Abigail holds back about half of
her morning milk for the little rascal, which means she's likely
producing at least a quart a day (even though she only gives us a cup).
Maybe that one high-production day she just forgot to hold back Lamb
Chop's milk, or he hadn't drunk her quite as dry the night before?
Either way, as I watch Abigail's kid eat a little more grass every day, I
dream of the milk production once he's weaned.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Going to an all green grass diet will change the flora in there rumen and then trying to switch back and forth may mess with there digestive system. The suggestion to not let them out on pasture until after 4 pm is a good one and then limiting it to an hour or less will help keep both sets of rumen bacteria working. As you know, when a goat don't get what they want, they discuss it loudly. Learn to turn a deaf ear!
Jackie --- Several people have told me that their goats withhold enough milk for the kids during milking, so it does seem to be a thing goats can do. For example: "When you milk the mom, she will hold back milk to save for her kids, so don't worry that they aren't getting enough. (We don't milk out completely for the first week, so mom learns she needs to hold back.). We do not mind if the mother holds back some of her milk for her kids because the kids come first and we are just sharing the milk with them. The kids stay on their mom all day and so they, in effect, take care of the evening milking." --- Fias Co Farm
Our doe lets the milk flow fast and heavy...then just stops, so I'm 99% sure she can stop giving milk when she wants to save some back for Lamb Chop. After all, it should be no different from stopping peeing mid flow if you need to --- not easy, but quite feasible if you've got a reason to do it.
I dunno. Seems more comparable to a male ejaculating. Can you stop yourself mid-orgasm? The let-down reflex can be really explosive for a new mother (human) learning how to nurse; it moderates with experience, but still, there's no stopping it mid-flow, unless - speculatively - the infant were to stop suckling. Maybe there is a stronger response when the goat kid is suckling rather than a pump. Or the goat kid is more effective at extracting the milk than a pump. Hands might be better. Stripping etc. It may be that goat lore is full bunkum same as gardening lore. I wouldn't know till I get a goat!