1st time owner - bottle baby

[babsbag]

I have pulled the kids and put on bottles at 2-3 weeks and it can be a challenge but the newborns are usually quite eager to take a bottle. The newborns get colostrum, fresh or frozen, and the older ones get goat milk or cow's milk; always warmed. I have never used replacer. I stand the kid, facing forward, between my legs and pry the mouth open and stick the nipple in. I always use the pritchard nipple for the first week and then transition them to Caprine nipple and then to the lambar bucket.

Most of the time I pull kids just to make them friendlier. Dam raised kids can be brats forever. This year I have pulled ones I am keeping, a few I have shared custody....I feed them and they spend time with mom too. I will separate them entirely until they are taking the bottle, the dam is in a pen right next to them so they can see them and talk to them. As soon as they learn to take a bottle and don't run from me I will put them back with the dam and then pull them once a day to feed them and let the dam do it the rest of the time. The kids are friendly but not really "in my pocket" the way 100% bottle raised kid will be.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Thanks again all, definitely lots of good reading. No idea if we'll have a bottle baby but hopefully we find out soon - breeder said his dam? is expected to kid this week. He's keeping all the does, so far 4 babies and all does. I'm getting anxious so fingers crossed for a buck this time!

 

[Goat Whisperer]

I guess this is the newbie in me and I can't say I've read about it before but what would be the reason to remove the kids from the doe immediately vs them nursing and weaning later? Think I've only read about removing the kid sooner when mom rejects it.

Its a matter of personal preference really. We don't do it for CAE prevention- we have a 100% negative herd.

Some thinks its terribly cruel to pull a kid and bottle feed right away. I don't feel that way anymore, but at one point I hated the thought of "ripping" a kid away from its dam- unless absolutely necessary. Anthropomorphism at its best I'll tell ya!

I don't let the doe see, smell, or lick the kid. As soon as the umbilical cord breaks and the nose cleared the kid is taken into the house and placed into a playpen right away.

It was actually a request of a client that got us started in bottle feeding. We were considering pulling after we had purchased several bottle fed goats, we absolutely loved their personality of theses goats. Now I prefer, although not totally necessary that goats I buy be bottle fed.

This was a post from a great member on the subject of bottle feeding. Sadly she isn't online anymore

I hate, hate, HATE chasing goats. Hate it. It ticks me off. I.hate.chasing.goats.

Did I mention that I dislike having to run down a goat?

Our bottle-raised goats are either "amazingly easy to catch" or "annoyingly tame", depending on your perspective.

All of them know their names and come into the barn / hop on the stand when called. I say, "All" b/c we just sold our last dam-reared boer doe. Every other goat on the place now, bucks and does, boers, Obs, and Nubs...all are dehorned and bottle raised and "in your face" friendly. Ahhhhhhh.

Hoof trimming, eye checks, and other routine maintenance goes sooo smoothly and easily for us.

I catch all kids at birth (19 so far since we began kidding in Nov. for this round of births, and 6 or so more does to kid before we're done - no way I could hand tame that many).

I do it for all of the previously-mentioned reasons, and because I enjoy it. "This" is my job....and I'm good at it.

I have only lost 1 live-born kid (she aspirated birthing fluid) in 12 yrs. 1 lost kid. ONE. I'm proud of that record.

No squashed kids, no worries about if mom is accepting them, no time spent staring at them as they bond, checking to see if their udder is working, fretting over them getting mastitis before I can catch it, or if another herd member will hurt them once they go out in the herd, no worrisome grafting if one is rejected, etc.

I *know* the kids are well-fed, happy, healthy, warm, etc. I see it immediately if there's an issue (if they won't eat or get the poops, etc.)

To me, and for us.... dam rearing is more labor intensive and nerve-wracking. I sold a doe last year who kidded before she was picked up. The new owner wanted her to raise the kids and I fretted my head off over her accepting them and checked on them constantly until I was sure it was going ok.

I don't even let the moms see the kids. They clean me off instead (I let them lick some fluid off my hands) and bond to me...makes them accept my milking them a lot easier.

They call for the babies a little the first 12 hrs or so. Or they're calling for me. They hush when I come back, so they're calling for 'something'...but my presence soothes them. It's truly not insane, top-of-their lungs screaming with 80% (the 20% of insane screaming is from Nubians But...they scream if walnuts fall on the barn roof....)

But from past experience back when I first got boers and let them raise the kids, and hearing horror stories (and screaming goats) at other farms, I know that kids and moms scream, sometimes for days, and stress and fret at weaning time....our kids transition well to feed (we can usually breed our does by their 1st fall) and grow well.

So while it may seem 'cruel' to some to never let them bond to the kids...it's a lot, lot, lot easier on them to never bond to them and THEN be seperated, in my opinion. 2 days after my does kid, they're back in the herd acting perfectly normal and happy.

The kids spend 12-24 hrs here in the house in a playpen in the coldest room of the house, being monitored. Then they move to the 'kid room' in the barn. They have a feeder, stuff to climb on, and we keep it at around 45 degrees so that they don't get too spoiled.

We bottle feed 3x a day.
8am, 2pm, and 8pm. It takes kids about 1-2 minutes to drink their bottle. At the moment we have 4 babies here (the rest sold w/in 2 wks of birth - usually picked up by 7 days old). I honestly spend more time walking down to the barn, hitting the lights, and opening the doors, and walking back up to the house, than I do feeding them.

I spend 15 min. or so, 2x a week (more when there are more kids) cleaning their room, and then one big annual 2 hr cleaning when the kids are all weaned.

I spend roughly 1 hr milking, pasteurizing, filling bottles, etc. per day.

Maybe we've just been doing it so long that we have it down to a science, but it's not a problem for me to spend 15-45 min. 2-3 x a day in the barn.

If I were letting the moms raise them, I know I'd spend more time after ea. kidding ensuring that they'd bonded and checking on them, than I do now.

We are set up so that we can raise 'kids' and yearlings away from the main herd, so that we're not trying to introduce unknown 3 mo. olds in w/ 200# does.
I sometimes have issues w/ bullies picking on newly introduced girls, but that's just part of goat ownership / larger herd management.

I guess my point is, once you get through the learning process, it's NOT nearly as daunting or time consuming as it seems or sounds.
Trust me, I have 1000 other things I do / take care of around here...if I spent as much time on goats and it sounds like it would take when you say, " I milk goats and bottle raise around 40 kids a year"....I would never get anything else done.

So there's my long-winded explanation for why we bottle raise vs. dam raising.

I don't sell BB's right away, I prefer to keep them until weaning before I send them off.

 

[WingAcres]

Thanks for your input @Goat Whisperer and thanks for sharing roll farm's post; they were both very insightful.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Its a matter of personal preference really. We don't do it for CAE prevention- we have a 100% negative herd.

Some thinks its terribly cruel to pull a kid and bottle feed right away. I don't feel that way anymore, but at one point I hated the thought of "ripping" a kid away from its dam- unless absolutely necessary. Anthropomorphism at its best I'll tell ya!

I don't let the doe see, smell, or lick the kid. As soon as the umbilical cord breaks and the nose cleared the kid is taken into the house and placed into a playpen right away.

It was actually a request of a client that got us started in bottle feeding. We were considering pulling after we had purchased several bottle fed goats, we absolutely loved their personality of theses goats. Now I prefer, although not totally necessary that goats I buy be bottle fed.

This was a post from a great member on the subject of bottle feeding. Sadly she isn't online anymore


I don't sell BB's right away, I prefer to keep them until weaning before I send them off.

I dont think i could ever do that i would feel so bad for the does. I'm not saying it is wrong in any way i just dont think its for me. We have a Alpine buck and an Alpine doe who were both bottle babies inside the people house and all was good. The doe is still alright but neither have any respect for person space. The Buck is starting to turn into a jerk frankly i think thats more age then anything but jerk plus no respect for person space i am not liking to much.

I actually prefer the Dam raised kids. We take them after they are weaned and put them in a pen and visit them daily to friendly them up and give treats sometimes. We had gotten a Boer/nubian doe who was wild, she was running on a 2 acre pasture with her mom one other doe and her dad and none of them wanted anything to do with people. So i actually ended up tying her out by our house with a dog house and every day i made her stand and get pets or treats. Now she is one of the first ones to greet me when i go in the barn. Way more work and time then bottle feeding to make them friendly i think but i prefer the "hey you wanna pet me?...no? alright im gonna stand over here and eat hay" attitude more then the in your pocket type.

All that being said we still have a really small herd and my opinion could and probly will change as it grows.

 

[babsbag]

I just chased a doe last night trying to catch her to milk her and I told her that she just got chased into a new home. I am just too old for this game so this year I am only keeping the few kids that I am bottle raising. We will see how this goes.

I did have a bottle baby buck and it had is pros and cons but I could say that I was never afraid of him. Yes he could be obnoxious but never dangerous.

 

[Fullhousefarm]

I have some bottle baby goats I love and some, well, that are annoying. I also have some dam raised goats I love and some that are frustrating. We normally dam raise ours, but I pulled two of quads and one of triplets to bottle feed and sell earlier, plus my daughter bought a bottle baby Saanen and my son got a bottle baby Lamancha this year. That said, we have a small herd so the dam raised babies are handled a lot. I find that there is a magic time around 6 weeks when my "run away" dam raised babies start realizing I have food and people are great if they ever doubted it. Some are in my pocket from day one. Personality difference I guess since I've had twins and one loved people like a bottle baby and the other didn't until 6ish weeks.

 

[Goat Whisperer]

I dont think i could ever do that i would feel so bad for the does. I'm not saying it is wrong in any way i just dont think its for me. We have a Alpine buck and an Alpine doe who were both bottle babies inside the people house and all was good. The doe is still alright but neither have any respect for person space. The Buck is starting to turn into a jerk frankly i think thats more age then anything but jerk plus no respect for person space i am not liking to much.

I actually prefer the Dam raised kids. We take them after they are weaned and put them in a pen and visit them daily to friendly them up and give treats sometimes. We had gotten a Boer/nubian doe who was wild, she was running on a 2 acre pasture with her mom one other doe and her dad and none of them wanted anything to do with people. So i actually ended up tying her out by our house with a dog house and every day i made her stand and get pets or treats. Now she is one of the first ones to greet me when i go in the barn. Way more work and time then bottle feeding to make them friendly i think but i prefer the "hey you wanna pet me?...no? alright im gonna stand over here and eat hay" attitude more then the in your pocket type.

All that being said we still have a really small herd and my opinion could and probly will change as it grows.

Pulling is definitely not for everyone. It's a lot of work for the first week or so.

I sometimes have to fight the emotional aspect of pulling kids too, but honestly weaning the kids at 8-16 weeks is MUCH worse. There is no pacing, screaming, production drop, parasite bloom, goats tangled in fences etc. I have less bullying in the herd, and none of the adults are pushy, other then the alpine anyway. She is just crazy by nature LOL.

You are right about the issues with the bucks. We teach the boys manners from day one. We don't tolerate any buck-like behavior towards people and NO rubbing their heads on people! All of the bucks I have raised have never had an issue with being pushy or bossy towards people- another reason why I like to hold onto them until weaning.

I only have one mean buck, he was a BB but I didn't raise him and I got him when he was 2. I knew the lady and had seen this buck as a yearling. Anyway, he was "very sweet and a big baby". Once I got him I started to see that he was trying to 'mark' people by roughly rubbing his head on people. He didn't like correction and would act like an I'll behaved child who had never been disciplined. In rut he was very dangerous and nobody will ever go on the same pen with him.

I know another person who got a buck from the same lady, a little younger than my buck, but had behavior issues too. He was dam raised. I really think most of it has to do with HOW they are disciplined.

I do somethimes miss watching the does dam raise, we still let a doe or 2 raise her kids every year

I am also worried about an adult killing or injuring a kid… I know someone who found a kid with a snapped spine, one of the goats butted the kid hard

We used to dam raise, and have friendly dam raised goats here. But I still love bottle babies!

 

[WingAcres]

Thanks again all! I love reading about why people prefer/do this over that vice versa. Keeps my mind open to new experiences and ways to enjoy life to the fullest.

And our babies are born...I said babies!!!! Twin bucks born last night, figuring out the logistics now regarding pickup. Breeder has them dam raised for a bit.

 

[WingAcres]