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chook · Joined: 14 Mar 2007 Posts: 305 Location: North Clare

We let the kids (usually spring-born) run with the dams, at 4-6 weeks lock them up at night to get the morning milk. The kids drink the rest of the day. We try to butcher the males at 4-5 months but don't always get around to it. I find the dams wean the kids off themselves at about 6 months and come into season in September. As we milk them daily they need to be dried off by 2 months before parturition but usually they give so little milk by December that I dry them off by Christmas as it's hardly worth bothering (but ours are backyard crosses, not heavy milkers). To dry them off first skip one milking in 4, then 1 in 3, then every second milking, then milk every 2nd day, every 3rd day and so on. This how I learned to dry off cows on an organic farm 25 years ago. It is kind to the beast and does not require antibiotics. It mimics the natural weaning process by regulating supply through demand and vice versa.
I have tried separating kids from dams, 2 weeks in a pen within the shed. At the first outing they were straight back on the tit... so I don't bother anymore.

chook

phil · Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 12:14 pm Post subject:

Chook
Is it possible to dry them off artificially with tubes as you do with cows.

chook · Joined: 14 Mar 2007 Posts: 305 Location: North Clare

Phil, I don't know, never tried it and never will.
I have boobs and given the choice of the two methods I would go the route I take with my girls Wink

phil · Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 1:13 pm Post subject:

I can see your point,i don't like the idea of castration,but it was more out of curiosity.