# Doe sucking teats



## SALTCREEK_Nubians_Linda (Nov 13, 2007)

I have an older doe who about to freshen. She normally has been a heavy producer in her life, around 10 to 12 pounds a day. Last year she didn't produce but about 6 pounds per day. Last year I thought maybe she was just depressed, though she ate heartily. She lost her kids last Spring and I also sold both her daughters at about the same time. I also thought she could have been ill, since she had a really awful malprentation of the kids, which I didn't catch in time to save them and it was a difficult time arranging them so I could finally deliver a dead buckling and a severely anoxic doeling, which didn't survive. :sniffle A lovely little doelng she was too. She is just about to freshen any time now and I think I may have stumbled on to the lack of milk in my pail last year. Her udder is full on only one side sometimes. Other times it appears more full. Well, this doe likes milk. More than once I've had her try to get her head into the milk pail before I get it out of her reach. She's kicked the pail over a few times and lapped at the spilled milk as I was cleaning it up. I have been watching her extra carefully this year, not wanting a repeat of last year. As I was watching her yesterday, to my chegrin, she bent herself down enough so that she could reach her udder and sucked on her own teat. :mad Now she's only going to have half the colostrum I can collect and, doggone it, that's my milk she's drinking!

Has anyone else ever seen this? How do I get her to stop it? Once she isn't largely pregnant anymore it will be just that much easier for her to reach those teats. :sigh


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## Sheryl (Oct 27, 2007)

Well, the very first goat I ever owned did this. She even sucked her teat to get the milk, keeping her doeling from getting it.....I was letting her dam raise. I called one of the local vets to see what I could do to get her to stop....he told me some off the wall story about a farmer that had a cow that did it....it was supposed to be some kind of joke. but what he was trying to tell me was it won't ever stop. I sold the goat.

Sheryl


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## blackthorn (Sep 6, 2008)

You'll have to render the udder permanently off limits, there are 2 ways of doing this (that I know of):
1. Get an udder net/goat bra (caprine supply have them) she'll have to wear it all the time-you just unclip one side to milk her.
2. Make a stiff cover for her neck so she can happily eat drink etc but can't turn her neck back to reach her udder, leather is good, you can cut to shape and lace along the top of the neck or maybe canvas with dowl inserts-like a horse cradle:http://www.horsetackinternational.com/wooden-neck-cradle.html
If she were a cow you could use a plastic weaner in her nose but they don't have them for goats  The first option is probably the best if you really want to keep her, otherwise I'd sell her.
Vanessa


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

Somebody on here described a neck "collar" made from a pastic coffee can to keep them from self sucking.


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## Seamus (Apr 9, 2009)

blackthorn said:


> 2. Make a stiff cover for her neck so she can happily eat drink etc but can't turn her neck back to reach her udder......


 I was thinking on those same lines. Most vets offices have 'elizabethan collars' for dogs so they can't lick, etc. Wonder if that would help by putting one of those on?


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## MayLOC (Oct 26, 2007)

you can also use paper tape (like for people wounds) sold at any store. We had a FF start this last year, trying to comfort her sore teat. STopped after a week when her teats hardened up. This year she started again and wouldn't stop by herself. I tape her after ea. milking. 1 piece goes vertically down one side, over the end and up the other side. The other piece goes around horizontally. In the beginning I put more tape on knowing she would try to get it off, but now the 2 pieces are plenty. 

If she wasn't such a good milker and we didn't need her milk right now she would be gone (just like another saanen sucker I had in the past). But it is a pain in the rear, so she will be replaced by one of the FF this year.

The previous sucker I had was so bad that when she would see me coming out to do chores, she would run to the far end of her pen, lay down quickly and start sucking as fast as she could! It was unreal!


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## Feral Nature (Oct 26, 2007)

I had a thread a short time back Self-sucking doe" about the same thing. She went on to kid and I worried about no colostrum for the baby. I tried to feed it some bottled colostrum from the freezer but it was not real successful. The kid was full and i was not patient and did not leave it away from mom long enough to get hungry enough to eat.

I was overwhelmed and said to heck with it.

The kid is fine and never got ill or sick from not enough colostrum from self-sucking mom. Also, I do not see doe sucking herself anymore. But kid is fine so i don't worry.

I have not put this doe into a milking routine yet so don't know what her output is at this time. But kid is fat.


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## favablue (Apr 11, 2009)

I would use teat tape like MayLOC recommended( it is the same as the paper tape for people). If she still does it the udder support is a good idea.
We have some that do it a little occasionally, but they usually stop on their own. I think if it is raising a kid it would help because she wouldn't have as much milk to herself.


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## Kaye White (Oct 25, 2007)

Ok...I fess up :blush...it was me with the coffee can. Take a plastic large coffee can,( I drink Folgers so it's red) cut the bottom out of it and cut it up the side. Slip this over the goats neck and overlap the edges to make it snug enough to not slip over her ears. Use duct tape completely around it to hold the edges together. There's no need to take it off. She can get her head in the milking stanchion, eat,drink, browse with it on. 
You'll need to remove it ever couple of days to check for irritation spots to the skin and brush the area underneath to keep it clean.

My doe wore her's for about 3 months...I took it off and by day 3 she was back at nursing herself. She got a new 911 address as she was consuming milk that should go in the pail.
K

P.S. I used every thing imaginable to put on the teats~even teat tape with the hottest peppersauce I could find~ to no avail. She'd just chew the tape off.


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## Feral Nature (Oct 26, 2007)

Kaye, I thought your "red" coffee can idea was great. I was at my wit's end with Eve and was gonna put one on her when she up and kidded after a long walk with the herd....the I just watched and waited and she quit I guess. Sometimes I think everyone of those girls needs a red coffee can on, I would do it to the herd just for meanness...pushy things...can you imagine how funny that would look? The whole herd wearing red Elizabethan collars? Hillarious and they would all be so put out.....you KNOW I'm kidding :rofl :rofl :rofl


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## shawhee (Jun 28, 2008)

:yeahthat
What Kaye said! They just chew the teat tape off - no matter how much I put on there. The collars work; be it coffee can or elizabethan collar. A new 911 address may be in order for this one as well, now that I have a daughter.


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## Feral Nature (Oct 26, 2007)

I looked out the window and saw Eve self sucking, darn. I have her separated from her kid now and I guess her udder felt full.


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## KingsCoGoatGuy (Dec 20, 2008)

Kaye, can you post or email a picture? I have a friend who has a Saanen self sucking big time. Thanks!


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## blackthorn (Sep 6, 2008)

As with cows once they start they rarely stop, especially on a milking schedule-but they'll quite often do it when nursing and sometimes they even start sucking other does, cows etc
Vanessa


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## Corky (Oct 26, 2007)

I saw one of mine licking her teet and then start to suck on it and I took her to the milk room and painted it with absorbeen Jr.
then I said...I hope that burns really bad!
I washed it off at milking time and I have not seen her try it again. :biggrin
sorry...I have a temper.


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2009)

I had one do this when I first got into goats FF. Put everything and anything on her teat, to get her to quit. She never did and went to the sale barn. Don't have time to deal with stuff like that.


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

I have one that is doing this now too, if her babies aren't on her anyway. Really ticked me off, she is a nice doe and really good milker as an FF. 

The way I have to tape her (if I keep the babies off overnight) is like an X, the full length of the teat. Then, I have to take another long piece and go around the teat. To keep that piece from being tight when the teat fills, I bunch it up in 3 or 4 places so it can "expand". She doesn't get it off then. I'm kind of hoping against hope that since she just started it, if I don't let her get the chance to do it anymore through her entire first lactation, maybe next year she will forget about doing that. :? I'm never going to let one stay on their dam so long like she did. She nursed for like 10 months, and will still even now, on rare occasion, go towards her dam's udder, which her dam just picks her leg up a little and she will immediately give up, but good grief! I'm weaning them by 5 months from now on I think.


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2009)

I think that was the problem with mine. First goats I ever bought and I dam raised. I separated them for 3 months and she still went back to nursing her dam, then nursed herself when she freshened. Sometimes tape worked on her sometimes she would tear it off. Such a PITB.


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## Seamus (Apr 9, 2009)

coso said:


> Such a PITB.


What's this?


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

Seamus said:


> coso said:
> 
> 
> > Such a PITB.
> ...


Pain in the backside


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## Seamus (Apr 9, 2009)

:duh :lol


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