text: recently freshened & purchased does not eating | Dairy Goat Info - Your Online Dairy Goat Resource and Community
  recently freshened & purchased does not eating
  Discussion in 'Dairy Goat Info' started by goat girl, Mar 3, 2008.
  Recently I purchased 2 milkers from someone--very reputable. I have had them a week. Kept them on the same grain as they were getting previously. Milkoutput is continually dropping. I know this is not unusual, but I believe it is due to the fact they are not eating--barely touching grass hay, eating only a little alfalfa pellets, and only eating at the most, 1/2 of the grain they were getting. I am giving them B complex, probiotics, and have wormed w/ cydectin. Any ideas? :/ :help
  ---oh they are nubians and have freshened before. These are my only milkers and I NEED to keep them in milk---I am starting with all new goats this year.--My only other goats are 2 babies which I also purchased from same person---no they are not the babies of these does.---babies--1 buck, 1 doeling
  grain--a mix of whole grains including oats, beet pulp, corn, calf manna, and probably something else.
  also have out baking soda, salt, and goat minerals
  goat girl, Mar 3, 2008
  My first thought is lack of calcium I KNOW I always go to this. but I would give CMPK it won't hurt them and might help BUT PLEASE get us a temperature on these goats ASAP because if I am right they can go down fast with low fever their rumen shuts down.
  Ok, I'll take temp. 1st thing in the morning---can't do it right now, but what is cmpk?
  Will give a report in the morning.
  CMPK is a injected drug that you can get from a vet. I see you are in the Kansas City area...about where and if you cant get it I can bring it to you...pm me if you want to I have 2 bottles here. Sounds to me they need it.
  Chaty, Mar 3, 2008
  It's expected. The last thing new goats need is to become pin cushions with no milk fever symptoms...shaking on the milkstand, refusal to get up on the milkstand when they previously did, low temp, no milk, refusal to eat at all.
  Is your place as clean as where they came from? I know when my does came and went from Ric's to my house they would balk on the milkstand about eating after other does, because he is a clean freak and I am normal
  I tell everyone purchasing milkers they should be happy to get 1 pint out of the girls when they move...I think you are expecting too much. Do they know where the water is? Are they drinking it? Maybe they hate the taste of your water and aren't drinking enough, maybe it smells funny to them. Trying putting some premixed koolaid into it...Walmart sells big bags of it cheap in the camping section.
  Keep milking them, keep them empty the number one reason a doe dries up is because new folks do not know what an empty udder is. When you think you are done, massage your hands through the udder, now milk the teats again, the udder should be colapsed down at least twice a day.
  Leave them alone, let them get used to you and their new surrounds. And a great big kudo's to you for buying two! vicki
  It's funny that Vicki went this route. My oldest doe is obviously a mental case....I can just move her from her normal stall or pen, and throw her off for a couple days sometimes. Can't imagine what she would do if I moved her a mile down the road.
  Laying hen's will often do the same thing when being moved to a new place. I give a friend of mine a RI Red hen last week to put in a brood pen to raise chicks off of.......she was laying every day for me, and had been since Christmas. He informed me that she finally laid her first egg yesterday.
  Yup, when we moved our does to Texas from Missouri, our milker dropped down to a cup per day, but we kept at her, milking at least once, if not twice per day. She's back up to 1/2 gallon, after adjusting to being moved.
  We also have one FF, due next month, who will NOT eat a cracker in another doe breathed on it first. Sigh.