Do you breed? Are you looking into breeding?
A couple things to know....
Did you know once a joey is born and travels up to moms pouch, it then latches on to moms teat, the teat will swell in joeys mouth and as the joey grows the teat grows as well?
Milk changes during lactation THREE different times. If two sets of litters are nursing at the same time (and they are different ages), they will produce different sets of milk for each joey. Each joey has their own nipple.
During lactation, the milk in the early stages is very low in protein. During mature stages it is very high in protein.
As the joey grows the action of sucking the teat takes control over milk production, and the ovaries direct the start of milk production.
And many times we have seen folks say, mom has stopped producing milk. Many times this is blamed on
diet. This is actually incorrect.
Moms do NOT stop producing milk. When a joey is having issues or being rejected, it shows there is something wrong with the joey itself. It could be the joey is just not strong enough to suckle. If the joey does not suckle, then yes, mom will dry up, but this is not due to anything other than the joey itself having issues.
Many things could cause a joey to have issues. Back to back breeding moms, not all joeys are meant to survive. It could be the lineage of the joey. Even though we feel we have good COI's, it is possible the lines are still too close and this can cause issues with the joeys that are not visible to the human eye.
Just a couple fun facts we learned over the weekend!!