The trend towards once a day milking has revolutionized modern day milking of cows and goats. No longer do you need to milk twice a day and plan your day around milking. In the past a milker would have to get up early and milk so that the required twelve hours between milkings could be done early enough to allow the milk to cool before bed time which needed to come early so you could get up early and start again. As you can see this set up a vicious cycle that would often rob you of any off farm time past a certain hour in the evening.
Besides the time you could save you also end up saving a lot of supplies and resources such as udder cleaner, utensil cleaner, filters, and udder balm since you will only be using them once a day.
Once a day milking also produces stronger more likely to thrive kids as they can be Doe raised and spend much more time on the teat than a standard twice a day milked goat or cow. This program also allows you to do away with bottle feeding the calf or kid saving time and a lot of money on replacer also producing a much stronger kid or calf. The down side is that you now need that calf or kid to nurse as long as possible to ensure that you get milk for as long as possible. This usually isn’t a problem because unless a calf or kid are forced to wean they will keep nursing at least a little for many months helping to keep the pressure off of the mothers teats.
Now how do you do this? Well it’s really easy, after kidding or calving you need to leave the cow/Nanny with the Kid/calf for at least two weeks to allow the youngster get strong enough to thrive with out his or her mother for twelve hours. Before you start removing the youngster on a nightly basis they must be eating solid food and drinking water. This usually isn’t a problem in two weeks but some kids may need a little longer especially if they were a weak kid or calf to begin with. I have gone as long as four weeks before splitting them up due to severe winter temps from a freak cold spell. So time is fluid and up to your best discernment. If in doubt err on the side of the kid and give them a little more time.
Now to the meat and potatoes as they say. The idea behind once-a-day milking is simple, trick your goat or cows udder into thinking it has been milked twice a day and thereby keeping any severe pressures off of the udder so that you don’t lose milk capacity. This can be accomplished by milking once a day and putting the kids or calf in with the mother for about twelve hours to nurse throughout the day.
A typical day would look something like this. Milk at 7:00 a.m. and then put the mother out with the kids for the day allowing them to nurse all they want throughout the day. Then at around 7:00 p.m. separate the family into two pens and give the kids plenty of forage and some feed ration to munch on all night. In the morning milk your animal completely out and put her back out with the youngsters so they can nurse throughout the day. At first this maybe a little uncomfortable for the cow or Nanny but in a few short days they will adjust and be just fine.
The next question I get asked is how does this affect your milk output? You will get slightly less milk on this schedule but only slightly and the freedom to leave the farm in the evening more than out weighs the slight loss of milk. How much you lose really depends on how good of an animal you have. On a four quart a day goat I lose about a pint to a quart a day in this scheme. and on a two quart a day goat about a pint. So it all depends on how good your animal started out.
As you can see there are some advantages and disadvantages to this program of milking. Yes, you will lose some milk but you will gain a more normal life. A lot can be said for a normal life and in fact I think that is what turns most people off of milking altogether the fact that you are tied up twice a day.
So if you have always wanted fresh milk and all it can provide but have been too busy this may be just the thing you are looking for to help you take up the milking way of life.
