Does momma have enough milk?
Submitted to discussion forum on Openherd.com
Does momma have enough milk?
While browsing Openherd tonight, I get a request for advise about a few day old
cria... "Should we be supplementing this cria? How do we know when we should?" I
figured I'd post my answer in Forum... someone's gotta be the lightning rod, right?
Haha. For a cria in the range of two days to a week old, if there's nothing else
alarming, then I look to the cria to tell me the answer.
Best: cria is getting up around once an hour to milk, suckles on mom, then
takes a solid nap. Ever have a perfectly healthy and thriving cria that "looked
dead" laying in the field, and you about have to step on her before she springs
to life?
Okay / Good: cria is getting up about every 30 / 45 minutes to nurse, then
voluntarily stops and cushes for a while.
Not Good: cria is getting up to milk every 20 or fewer minutes, or is pestering
mom excessively. Ever hear the unfortunate story about the cria that didn't make
it... "I just don't understand, that cria was nursing constantly!"? Time to evaluate
mom and consider supplementing the cria.
Sometimes I'll say it as "Every 15 min = bad / every 30 min = keep watching / every
45 min = good / every hour = great". This is only a useful rule of thumb if the
cria is otherwise healthy, mom is producing at least some milk, and there is no
other intervening factor, such as mastitis or a "stealth-nursing" older cria suckling
the mother dry.
Hope this helps someone identify a cria in need, and just as importantly gives you
the confidence to NOT shove a bottle down their throat when its unneccessary.
Best of luck this birthing season!!