Thoughts on the Feeling of Udders

(No pictures in this post, so you can use your imaginations when considering the udder and the feeling thereof!)

I haven’t had a lot of experience in udder assessment. For a while, when I was in University, I had a roommate who milked cows at an ungodly hour, and sometimes I accompanied her. To this day, I’m not sure what she did to convince me to do that. I learned how to attach the milking suction tubes and how to dip the teats and all the accompanying things one must do for cow milking. That was the extent of my udder experience.

Cow udders, when they’re in milk, are huge. Positively enormous. I’m sure many of you have either seen cows on television or in person, or perhaps you’ve even milked them, so you know what I mean. It’s like a basketball (or 2) hanging off the poor cow. There is no mistaking a full cow udder.

Goat udders are a bit different. I’ve seen plenty of pictures of full Nubian and Alpine goat udders. Not unlike cow udders, although smaller, they are still in the basketball category and there is no question when they are full.

Stuffin, our pregnant goat, is a pygmy goat, and several of our pygmy goats are actually bigger than her, so she’s a small pygmy. Her sister, Puffin, is about the same. When I feel Puffin’s non-active udder, it just blends in to the contour of her underside. The only hint that you’re dealing with an udder area is the teats. Strangely, she has four of them. Two are slightly larger than the others, but they are not large at all and the area is quite flat and non-contoured.

Stuffin’s udder began to change about 3 weeks ago I’d say. When I first felt the changes, it was as if her udder had gone from being like Puffin’s non-contoured udder, to being a little soft pillow. It was not what I would call swollen, or full, or even bulging. It was merely “puffy” I suppose. Perhaps comparable to what it would feel like if you laid a good wool sock on the carpet, and laid your hand on it such that you could feel the carpet on either side. I became all excited at this slight puffiness, because of my udder inexperience, and thought she was “bagging up” as they say.

Every day, I went twice a day and felt her udder. Was it different? Was it puffier? Was it firmer? Minute possible changes seemed to register in my mind as monumental, suggesting impending birth. Over these weeks though, I have become jaded. I have done less udder prodding and palpating, because she wasn’t really changing much, and after all, she wasn’t popping out a baby. A slightly puffy udder became a slightly puffier udder, but otherwise, it was just Stuffin, teasing me with her silence.

Today, I felt the udder again. I think I last felt it 3 days ago. I really think it might have changed now. Before, it was a puffiness that I sensed with my palm, more than my whole hand. Today, it was a handful. Still, it is not firm or taut or approaching basketball status. Her teats are about 1 inch long, maybe 1 and ¼ inch, and about the width of a thick pen. Puffin’s are tiny and not as long or wide.

I do not know what a full pygmy udder looks like, really. Is it baseball sized? How do I know the difference between “puffy udder” and “bagging up udder?” How do these slight changes in her udder correspond to her possible delivery?

She was purchased on Oct 2 as being bred (and he said she would kid “sometime in December” which was clearly wrong).

Oct 2-31 = 29 days

Nov 1-30 = 30 days

Dec 1-31 = 31 days

Jan 1-29 = 29 days

Total: 119 days

Goat gestation is about 150 days (145 to 155). We have roughly 31 days left, then, if she was bred on October 1, for example, although why he would have said she would kid in December is beyond me if that was the case. I suspect she was bred before October 1 because she would have been being transported on that day. So it's probably less than 31 days...

Anyway, this whole experience is very interesting for me, and I’ve learned a lot, most notably that a slightly puffy udder is not a sign of imminent birth.

Got any udder wisdom to share?