What to do with a milking buck.

I should have known that the Countryside readership would not let me down! After my call for help to gather information about "milking bucks" was published in the July/August 1997 issue, I received some very encouraging and useful responses.

The first came from Roger Ives from Suffolk, Connecticut. He recalls having collected semen from two milking bucks, both Alpines. He reports that "in each case the buck had excellent libido and good quality semen."

One of those bucks belonged to Marie Armstrong of Schenectady, New York. I contacted her, and she told me about her buck, Jeopardy. He had so much milk in his teats that many people thought his enlarged teats were his testicles." She also provided quite impressive milk production results of his dam and offspring.

As to my worries about decreasing fertility and mastitis, she said, "He was very fertile, lots of libido... he was sold after many daughters... he was extremely healthy" and "I would not be afraid of a buck with milk in teats after my experience with this one."

Elise Presley of Greenbrier, Arkansas steered me toward Debbie Taylor of Dover, Arkansas. Debbie has a milking LaMancha buck, jupiter, who also has teats filled with milk. She describes the teats reaching a length of 3-1/2" with a diameter of about 1" but very small orifices. She has heard of another milking buck developing mastitis and nearly dying.

One interesting factor is that two-year-old jupiter had milk only his first summer but not this year. Now I am thinking that there is a remote chance that my buck might not continue to have this problem either.

Because a problem it has become. His left teat has grown quite large and has hardened, there are some scabs on the outside. The orifices in his teats are also extremely small. Acting upon advice from Kat Thompson of Buffalo, Missouri, I tried to dry him off by treating him with the product "Tomorrow." This did not work. First, due to the udder being so hard, I could not milk him out. And he, much more so than any first fresheners I encountered, absolutely resents my touching his teats, making it quite an ordeal.

In addition, the tip of the "Tomorrow" tube, although quite narrow, did by no means fit into the orifice. I am now aware that I may lose him to mastitis. At this time, he is still going strong; no sign of laminitis yet.

Kat Thompson also told me that she had personally seen three French Alpine milking bucks with absolutely no fertility problems but one friend lost her buck to mastitis. Her statement, luckily, she has some sons" made me wonder if I should not only keep his daughters but also try to keep back one of his sons, knowing that he could develop the same problem. I am still pondering this.

In the meantime, however, the doe he bred last February delivered two promising daughters. The decision has been made: this breeding season I am going to use him on as many of my does as possible. If the information I received from all these good people is sufficient to judge upon, then I am confident that his daughters should be above average milkers.

Jane Bechtel of Middletown, Pennsylvania supplied an interesting article from the February 1995 issue of Discover magazine. Among a number of generally interesting facts (e.g., besides goats, this phenomenon applies to only one other specie, the Dayak fruit bat of Malaysia) this article by Jared Diamond states, "We've also known that many otherwise perfectly normal male domesticated goats, with normal testes and the proven ability to inseminate females, surprise their owners (and probably themselves) by spontaneously growing udders and secreting milk... Both sexes of all mammals have mammary glands. While the glands are generally less well developed and nonfunctional in males, the degree of underdevelopment varies among species." And, "It should be emphasized that male and female differences in hormones aren't absolute but a matter of degree... In particular, becoming pregnant is not the only way to acquire the hormone necessary for breast growth and milk production. Direct injection of estrogen or progesterone (hormones normally released during pregnancy) has triggered breast growth and milk production in virgin cows-and also in male goats, male guinea pigs and a steer."

And then there was the response from Karol Lowery of Seguin, Texas. She owns an 8-year-old Nubian buck out of a top bloodline who, as a two-year-old, "had the beginnings of an udder." She reports that he sired normal, beautiful, show-quality babies and that his bucks went on to become herd sires. She did not change his feed, she did not milk him or treat him, she just left it alone. And this although "his udder, if anything, has gotten bigger over the years." Karol believes that trying to dry him up by the method used for does and reducing protein would 'certainly not decrease the size of his udder. All it will do is weaken him." She contacted several breeders in her area, all of whom advised to ignore it.

After considering everything I have learned, I decided to do just that. If he and I are lucky, he will sire a number of offspring that may turn out to be terrific milkers. What else can one ask for?

I am very grateful to everyone who responded to my problem.