A Monumental Milk Day

Today was a monumental day. . . (okay, not really). We've been milking goats since 2004, but we'd always dry up and have a few months where we weren't milking. Then January 25th, 2007 we had a doe kid and from that point on, we've always had at least one doe in milk, every day. So, if you do the math - that's 1,460 days and if we were milking 2x a day (which I think we were the whole time) that's 2,920 times to milk!! Yikes! I guess by now we've kind of gotten it (that is, milking... not exactly goat raising, especially in NE OK, haha!!) down to a science, somewhat - but you can never get too technical with animals 'cause they always have their own weird tweaks to them ;).

So, it's really not that significant, but it is interesting (at least I think so!).


The 2 new kids are doing good. They are most likely leaving for their new home tomorrow!! Kids are moving out fast this year...

Also, thanks to those who responded on the last post about the "hairless Wonder". I am going to try a few things, but the one that seems most plausible is iodine deficiency. I was also reminded that her kids were born full term but DOA... so not good and throws another thing into the loop. The test is simple, supplementation is pretty easy and her symptoms match it a lot. So I'm going to give it a shot. To test if a goat is iodine deficient - you just take Iodine Tincture and paint the inside of the goat's tail with it. If the stain is gone in 24 hours, they are deficient. You can supplement iodine this way if you need, but their skin will get irritated. Kelp is a good source from what I understand and I also have Organic Iodine (that is an oral feed product) that I might try if she turns up deficient. If she doesn't turn up deficient, then I'm going to have to move on to something else.


Have a good night! I'll see if I can post again before the weekend, but my regular computer is at the shop and I have a busy/fun weekend ahead, Lord willing. So we'll see ;).


Suriyah