We are done milking for this season! The girls are bred, and we’ll begin milking again after they kid in the spring.
Here’s Annie at her last milking for the year.
I originally hoped to milk year-round, but that was crazy. Milk production drops off significantly after a while, so I was getting a quarter of the amount I milked over summer. With the milking machine it was taking me about the same amount of time to milk, but I was getting so much less milk. The cold weather that we had a few weeks back was a reality check, and I determined that it just wasn’t worth the time and effort to milk for such a relatively small amount.
In the future I plan on enjoying fresh goat milk for about 6-8 months of the year. During that time, I hope to milk enough extra and freeze it to last us through the dry months. I think that plan will respect the natural milk production cycle, and allow me to use my time most effectively by milking when production is high.
For now the does and I are enjoying a few months off, and then we’ll be back at it in the spring. Our first kidding should be at the end of March, so the milk will be flowing again in just three months!
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