She's baaaaaaackkkkk!

L has been our best milker since her first freshening in 2004. She peaked at 8 pounds with 2x/daily milking. Half gallon at each milking. That first year, we pulled her kids and bottle fed them. So we got really accurate records on how much milk she gave that first year. She lactated 339 days, gave us 1704# of milk (~213 gallons). Daily average 5.8#. The next year, she had twin doelings. We let her nurse her doelings and began separating them at two weeks of age. For the second year, with nursing her daughters until we weaned them at six months of age, she lactated for 350 days, giving us a total of 1236 pounds of milk (~154 gallons). Daily average 3.7#. Remember this was in addition to feeding her daughters in the daytime.

I'm so happy she only had one buckling kid this year. Because we will wean him at eight weeks and then we'll have her milk for ourselves. We are still struggling to have enough milk for the orphaned kids, so tonight I decided that I would milk L, and see how much she would give me.

She is three days fresh and she gave me 1.8#, after having her kid on her all day long. That's our girl!! I love milking her. She has the nicest udder, perfect sized teats, and I can empty her udder in just a few minutes time. She is just a joy to milk. I am really hoping she increases on her milk supply this year. As a third year freshener, she should be giving us more than one gallon of milk a day, especially since she gave that much as a first freshener!

Last night I did late grocery shopping and didn't get home until 10pm and Z did not get separated from her kids, so there was no point in milking her this morning. She gives 4 cups and we really need that milk for the orphans. That is why I decided to milk L, because we were totally out of milk. I really don't want to have to buy more milk, when we have four does in milk!! I separated the herd queen's doeling from her, Z's kids from her. L gets to stay with her boy because he is barely 3 days old. But I will be milking the herd queen in the morning, along with Z, L and N.

Until next time.