Increased Milk Production

Southern by choice

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Recently we decided to try something different. Our does in milk were producing quite nicely but after talking with a few breeders that have been breeding and doing DHIR testing for 20-30 years we changed a few things.

Our 5+ year old Nubian has a little bit of a meaty udder pretty as it is it is a bit meaty. After one week of the changing of how we feed she has gone from 1 gallon a day to 1 1/2 gallons day!

We are seeing the increase on all the does! Woo Hoo!

The only question is how will it play out when I make the cheese?

The feed we have been feeding is high in fiber lower in protein. We get great yield from our milk.
Milk was from a mixture of Nubian, Lamancha, and mini-mancha both times.
1st batch- 1 gallon 3/4 -minus 1 cup yielded 3lbs 10 0r 12 oz cheese.
2nd batch- same amount of milk but yielded 3lbs

2nd batch I fell asleep and it hung a lonnnnggggg time. It was a little dry actually.

I am curious to see if we will have less yield because from what I understand the fiber makes more fat. Not sure about this so it will be interesting to see.
New feed is higher protein but much lower fiber.

Biggest issue is we really have to milk 2x day. Sometimes we will skip a night for a break but have found at least with the Nubian we can't she will cry, and has a hard time walking, and if you touch those teats they want to pour out milk so we won't take any chances with her. Don't know how we'd do a 24 hour fill on her.
 

OneFineAcre

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So, what is this feed?
50% increase in volume is huge. :ep
 
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babsbag

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If I remember from my cheese class it is not just the fat in the milk that make more cheese, it is also the protein so this should be an interesting test.
 

Southern by choice

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We always feed Barttlett.
I like the Calcium/Phosphorus ratio and the copper especially.

We gradually added the Blue Seal Dairy Goat Pellet 20%.
I do like the milk increase! I do not like the Calcium/Phosphorus ratio. The does are getting thinner too. The increase in production is definitely a balancing act.

I am always concerned about taxing my goats... I do not want to do that.
I talked with one of my mentors and she suggested instead of drying off just milk through, less taxing on the doe then pregnancy and kidding.
Since we have several does this year that are coming into milk without being bred it is a pretty good indicator that these does should just milk for 2 years instead of milk /dry off / milk etc.

Millie, for those of you that know Millie, has a precocious udder.:\
So does one of our Nigies. We were going to breed the Nigie in May. Now I don't know what to do. I have someone waiting for a buckling from the line up.
 
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