[Ashlynn]

I did it again. I waited too long after kidding before milking (6 days). Her udder was beautiful and symmetrical and held a lot of milk. Then the triplets were left to it, ruined it, but not their fault. Now it’s lopsided, barely lets down any milk for me, tiny. The show she was in milk for got moved to April. Have no idea how I can fix it and keep it up until then. Gonna try either teat tape or separating kids at night next. Maybe putting tape on one teat for a few hours will help. All 3 prefer the same teat lol. When I start milking about 3 days after kidding everything goes fine, but I messed up for like the third time. One day I will have a fool proof milking plan... one day!

 

[goatblessings]

Many many show people pull kids at birth, bottle/lamb bar feed and milk mom on day one...... even if you don't choose to do that, triplets are hard on udders, especially bucklings. If I leave kids on, I always pull anything over twins.

 

[Ashlynn]

@goatblessings I've considered it but don't think I'd be comfortable with bottle feeding from that young unless I have to. The kids just seem to thrive more with mom, even if bottle feeding her milk. We almost took one of the kids off her but decided not to. I like to dam raise if possible. Maybe I'll try it pulling a kid or two one year and see how it goes then.

 

[Damfino]

Triplets are more difficult, but any number of kids can wreck the udder if you don't watch carefully to make sure they're nursing both sides equally. When my does first kid, I bring them onto the stanchion twice/day and check the udder for evenness and for any signs of inflammation, dry teats, etc. With very young kids, they nearly always go for the easiest teat, or sometimes for whichever teat they happened to latch onto the first time and they never bother to look for another one until they're older and hungrier. Because of this, it's very easy for problems to crop up in the first two weeks. Whenever I've got kids refusing one side, I'll tape off the one they prefer and train them to nurse from the other. If they just aren't hungry enough to keep the udder nursed down, I'll milk mama until she's even. That way when the kids' appetites catch up to her production, she's got enough milk for them and she's producing it equally from both sides. If the kids only nurse one side, mama's supply may dry up in the other half and then you've got a problem when they get bigger and hungrier.

Hopefully there's no mastitis. This can cause kids to reject that side. If mastitis caused it to dry up it will need to be treated and hopefully it can heal. Feel for hard lumps in the udder tissue and run a mastitis test. It's possible if you start milking the non-productive side it will start producing again, but it may not even out this year. Good luck!

 

[Ashlynn]

Good news is her udder is starting to get better!

 

[Ashlynn]

Tried teat tape and it worked very well kids did not tear it off and her udder was back to being full and symmetrical for me to milk. Thinking about getting her milk tested this year if I can get her to keep producing a good volume by the show.

 

[Goats Rock]

Yay! :clapping:

 

[TexasGoatMan]

When our does kid. The first thing we do is help the new born kids to nursing. After 24 hours we then milk the udder empty of colostrum so they will start producing milk. After 24 hours the colostrum does the kids no good. We save the colostrum in case we need it for kids or calves. We feed the does on the stand morning and afternoon and milk the extra milk out and save for soap making. As soon as the milk is good for human consumption we start sharing the milk with the kids. If a doe has triplets then one kid is bottle fed and the other two nurse mama. This has worked out great. But it requires daily attention Twice a day.