Milk Production Question

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Southern_Heart

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If a mare that was always good on her milk production in the past and then had a bad year where she didn't produce as much or very little. Is is possible that in the future she will be bad on milk too or just a freak thing that happened?

Thanks

Joyce
 
I would have to suspect problems with nutrition. Inferior hay or fescue could have caused her production to be poor
 
I am going to take an educated guess here and say.....

The milk production is stimulated by hormones. Anything from age, health, and diet and many more factors,could make hormone production vary.

If she is an old mare I would think that hormones are tapering off, but I wouldn't expect this to typically occur in a horse under 16-17 years old. if you are talking about a horse that is,say 10 years old, it could be something related to other issues that would cause her body to not to release the needed hormones to stimulate milk production.

Maidens are the most common younger horses to have poor milk production at foaling, at least from what I have seen and read.

This is just my opinion here, and an educated guess. I know with people, a thyroid issue can cause all kinds of havoc with hormone production. It may be worth it to have a vet check her over before you consider rebreeding her.

Good Luck,

Carolyn
 
I had a mare a few years back that foaled without much of a bag, and didn;t seem to have a lot of milk, BUT, she had a good sized colt that year, and he flourished with what she provided, and she never dropped weight like he was pulling her down or anything, so this makes me wonder if sometimes they just do not "show" it as well as other years. Obviously, there was no problem there at all.
 

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