So two of Bella's kids went to their new homes yesterday, the third is staying here. All three kids were with her 24/7 up until now and obviously the boys were pigs! She is really getting engorged to the point where she was crying to be milked at 2am today. I milked her then and she was engorged again at 6:30 so I milked then. At 12:30 she was really big and hard on one side, but not so bad on the other. I went ahead and milked that one side just enough to make her more comfortable. I only want to milk twice a day, so am I right in milking her a little if she gets really big and then milking out completely twice a day? Here is a picture I took at 12:30, so it had been 6hrs since I had milked (sorry it's not a great picture, she didn't want to move her tail out of the way):
If you only want to milk twice a day, only milk twice a day. The pressure is what shuts off production. Unless she was producing an incredible amount of milk her udder will not suffer.
I know that you want to help her, but the more you milk her, the longer she will remain engorged. I you refrain from milking, then she will eventually go down.
OK, I am a complete newbie to the whole goat thing but when I took the kids off their mothers I just milked them 2X a day. They were a bit uncomfortable for a couple of days but got over it quickly. If you keep easing their comfort you are dragging out the drying up of extra milk production. Just my 2 cents worth...
