Bottle Feeding Boer Babies

[JerseyXGirl]

Saturday I acquired two Boer Babies that a gentleman did not want. He purchased the momma and the babies were sent home with me. I'm feeding 4oz every 4 hrs or so but they act like their starving. I've never owned large breed goats so I could really use some advice if anyone wants to offer. Thank You

They were born on Thursday.

Here are their pics
Patches/doe

Here is Thor/buck

 

[The Egg Bandit]

I'm a newbie, but I fed my Saanen and Kinder kids every 2 hours the first few days. They let me know on the third or fourth day when I could cut it back to four hours.

ETA: Those are some cute kids! Congrats on the new additions!

 

[haviris]

How old are they? Every 4 hours sounds good, but I generally let them eat as much as they want at each feeding.

 

[cmjust0]

Bottle babies always act like they're starving, so no worries there..

A basic rule of thumb employed by many folks is to feed kids 10-12% of their bodyweight in milk per day, figuring a gallon of milk weighs about 8lbs.

So, if the kid weighs 10lbs, it needs 1lb of milk...1/8th of a gallon...a pint...16oz. If you split that into 4 feedings, you're looking at 4oz/feeding. If you do three feedings, then you'd go 5-6oz at a time.

Kid weighs 20lbs...32oz...three feedings = 10-12oz/feeding.

So on, so forth.

Again, just a basic rule of thumb.. And, no, you don't need to weigh the kid everyday. You can just sorta eyeball it and figure out that it's growing at about X-amount/day and make adjustments from there.

That said, I actually like to get them to take 20oz 3x/day pretty quickly simply because it's easier on ME. But that's just me. Well...me and several others here, I guess. Going by the above schedule, though, a kid should be 40+lbs before getting 60oz of milk and I can gaurandangtee none of ours are 40lbs by the time they're on 60oz/day.

I guess what I'm saying is...the 10-12%/day thing is, to me, a good rule of thumb for baby babies, before they're able to take 60oz/day.. Once they're up to my "three soda bottle limit"...that's where they stay until they're weaned.


BTW...Your Boer babies are almost certainly part Nubian, with a touch of some other type of Swiss dairy breed in there. The frosty ears on Patches are a dead giveaway for the Nubian influence, and the roman nose gives way to the dished face of Alpine breeds pretty easily. Your babies faces are slightly dished. Possibly a percentage Boer crossed to a Nubi/Alpine hybrid or something along those lines.

Who cares, though. They're pwitty.

 

[haviris]

My bottle calves ALWAYS act hungry, but my bottle goats only act hungry at feeding time.

 

[Roll farms]

All my kids (meat and dairy) get fed 3x a day from birth on.
I let them have as much as they want per feeding (within reason) and they generally stop around 6-8 oz the first few days. By days 3-5 they're taking a 16 oz bottle, and by 2 weeks they get 20 oz.

I like waiting 6-8 hrs between feedings so I *know* they've had time to digest their milk, less risk of FKS or bloat / upset tummy.

They're cute!