Milk Testing with Does Mothering Their Kids

How do you do it?!

We often get this question in relation to dam raising kids and keeping the herd on milk test. It’s cropped up again lately because kidding has started and people are excited about proving their goats milk the way they do.

First of all, “milk testing” in this context is referring to the Dairy Herd Improvement program that involves either a certified owner, member of a group or third party weighing milk produced by each doe over a 24 hour period and taking samples to send off for component testing. The samples are tested for protein and butterfat percentages and Somatic Cell Count (SCC) which helps monitor udder health among other things. Depending on which way the program is implemented in a given herd, the milk test can be used to make breeding and management decisions, earn milk stars and or be ranked against all the other does in the country that are in the testing program. This is how Top Ten and Elite lists are generated.

There are many misunderstandings about how milk testing works. Some people assume that milk production must be measured every single day in order to determine exactly how much milk is produced, but in reality the lactation production is estimated from a small number of tests. In fact, if the purpose is simply to earn a milk star, there are options to test the doe just once in the entire lactation. Since the single test isn’t as informative as regular milk testing, the doe cannot be ranked against other does in the country accurately so not all awards are available to animals that only have a single snapshot of their performance on record.

We have never participated in a one day milk test, so we have no real insight on that option. We have also never been part of an owner sampler or group test plan. We have been doing standard testing with a certified tester for over a decade. The 3^rd party tester and verification tester must be certified and cannot have any interest in the results. They cannot own, buy or sell animals from the herd they are doing the testing for and they can’t be relatives of the herd owners. We have a couple of neighbors involved as our tester and verification tester, so they come over at milking time to weigh and take samples of the milk on milk test days. The milk then doesn’t leave their possession until they mail it to the lab. The program we are in requires 8 tests during a single doe’s lactation and we stagger breeding throughout the year so that our family milk supply is more stable. The tests are supposed to be at least 21 days and no more than 45 days apart, so we aim to test once a month. Does that are within the first 8 days of freshening are marked ‘TF’ (Too Fresh) for components because they are producing more colostrum than milk.

On milk test days, all kids that are over 8 days old are removed from their dams and put in what we refer to as the Kid Sanctuary. This is a small pen where they have alfalfa pellets, water, hay or grass and sometimes lamb bars. Most of the time we like to spend time with the kids and we bring individual bottles, but we don’t like being mobbed so especially with older kids that might mean that we individually remove each kid to give the bottle and return it. With larger groups, the lamb bar comes in handy, but since they haven’t necessarily been trained to use it and they are all different sizes, we might still pull out a few individual smaller kids to give them their own bottle. The Kid Sanctuary is lined with hardware cloth to make sure that even if milking does manage to break out of their enclosure, they can’t nurse kids through the fencing. Keep in mind that if there’s any weakness in your fencing kids or their dams will find when they are separated for milk test. A Kid Sanctuary is ideally far away from wherever their dams spend the day.

For the most part, first time mothers are not happy when their kids are taken away for the 24 hours required for milk test day, but the mothers who are familiar with the process seem to look forward to having a day off from kids climbing all over them. You can almost see them breathe the same sigh of relief that a bunch of mothers of young humans do when they get a few hours break from their littles. Kids, especially the younger ones, will call for their dams. Experienced mothers will either ignore them or give them one little return bleat that sounds like, “It’s okay, I’ll be back in a little bit” and then they don’t usually answer again. First fresheners will usually be as upset as their offspring for the first milk test day, but by the time the second test day comes along they seem to appreciate the break (not surprising considering by that time their kids are usually 9-13 weeks old, climbing and leaping off them while they rest) and they are all like the experienced mothers by the third test day.

We were very concerned that being separated from their kids would be very stressful for the mothers, but within a few tests it was pretty clear that the mothers felt pretty much like a human mother does about having a few hours without the little ones. Mothers and kids are all happy to be reunited at the end of the test day. We make sure to fill the kid’s bellies just before returning them so they aren’t as eager to suckle as much as they are to see their mothers. Most of the time we see a dip in how much surplus milk the does have the day after milk test day, so the kids are clearly making up for any perceived deficit.

We do imprint kids on the bottle at birth with their own mother’s colostrum. Most kids have no problem remembering milk comes from bottles less than a month-ish later at their first milk test. We do not remove kids that are less than 8 days old for milk test days because we want the kids suckling as much as possible and the milk is just coming in so the test is just going to marked TF anyway. Once kids are a couple of months old, many do not care about taking a bottle during the test day. They are content with alfalfa and they don’t usually call to their mothers as much as they did on their first test day. Of course, buck kids are usually weaned from their dams before their dam’s third milk test, but we let the mothers wean their daughters whenever they wish if we are keeping them. Years ago, we didn’t imprint kids on bottles at birth and we would try to get kids that were less than 30 days old to take a bottle multiple times throughout the day. Kids 30+ days old we offered a bottle and if they took it that was good, but if they didn’t we didn’t worry about it because they had alfalfa and hay available. On the commercial dairy farm we learned about goats on, all kids were weaned cold turkey at 30 days old having never seen hay or feed of any kind that wasn’t liquid. We figure anything 30 days old or more that has had a month of experimenting with solids by following the example of their dams and herd mates should be fine for 25-ish hours with a full array of familiar food options.

In the early days we were in the habit of pulling kids for 12 hour intervals so we could get milk for ourselves every day. Kids were still calling for their dams during the interval they weren’t accustomed to being away from each other for and the first fresheners were still very concerned about the change in rhythm. This brings us to another very important detail. For the first 3 lactations in particular, the udder needs to stretch to hold 12 hours worth of milk production. The hormones to facilitate this are higher during the beginning and end of the lactation. When we pulled kids every other 12 hours, the udders expanded naturally a little bit every day. When we switched to only milking the surplus and leaving kids with their dams 24/7, we had to separate kids from their first freshening dams for 12 hours at least once a week to make sure the gradual expansion had a chance to take place. Otherwise suddenly pulling kids for 12 hours from a doe that hasn’t ever been given a chance to expand her milk capacity will be very uncomfortable and the tightness and pressure can suppress milk production as well as increase the chances of mastitis.

As always, there are many good ways to raise a dairy goat. Our ways of handling milk testing with dam raised kids have varied over the years and may continue to change over time as our lifestyle or the needs of the animals dictate a need for adjustment. This is just the way we have handled things at our place. Hopefully, this gives you fresh insight or encouragement if you’ve been on milk test with does that are raising their own offspring for years or it gives you the ideas and inspiration to finally sign up because you can tell this is something you can tailor to your own herd.