Feeding quads @ 2 weeks

[wooliewabbits]

So, we have tried some different approaches with feeding the quads. Now at two weeks, two of the kids are in the nursery full time and keep two with the mom during the day to milk freely. At night they're all taken from mom and the next morning she gets milked. It's working out, but now we're going to need more milk! Getting approx 1/2 gallon in the morning by milking once a day. These kids will quickly be up to two quarts a day each and so we'll be short 2 quarts a day. Using last years frozen milk (yay!!!!)

SO:
Do we add milk replacer into their diet? Which brand is best? Will it upset their tummies if we do both mom's milk and replacer?
Do we sell them and let someone else bottle feed them? We're keeping the doe and whethering the three bucks to sell as pets.
Really don't want to buy 7 gallons a milk a week. (have six youngins)

We have another doe due to kid on May 4, hoping she'll have a single so we can get her milk for all these babies!

Any ideas are appreciated! Thanks.

 

[alsea1]

I think some of the more exp. goat folks have some low cost milk recipes. Hopefully they see your post.
Yeah. Thats alot of milk to come up with.

 

[Pearce Pastures]

Good milk replacer, the kind that is less likely to cause scouring, is expensive but worth the cost since you will likely end up throwing about the cheaper ones. I don't use replacer and the one time I did, I had scouring babies, even when I mixed it half with whole cow milk, but I think that I have read that "Land o Lakes" brand is good. Here, we use whole cow milk and yes it does add up. The ease of use and the lack of scours makes it worth it in my opinion. I am not sure how that would stack up against a GOOD replacer cost-wise.

If you are planning on selling them anyways, I would absolutely sell them now on the bottle and save yourself the work and money though.

 

[wooliewabbits]

If you are planning on selling them anyways, I would absolutely sell them now on the bottle and save yourself the work and money though.

When selling them as bottle babies, would I recommend the buyer use pasteurized cows milk, and not milk replacer? I don't want to sell them and end up with a disappointed buyer and them having scouring kids. What about whethering them at four weeks? Do I leave it up to the buyer to do it?

 

[Pearce Pastures]

If it were me, I would sell them on whole milk and leave it to the buyer to wether them, especially if they are going to be kept as pets. If they are going for food, you might wether them but I would leave it to the buyers still.

 

[Fullhousefarm]

She was older, but we got our grade doe at 8 weeks. She was a bottle fed triplet and we didn't want to wean her yet (and the breeder suggested the same) so we switched her to (raw, what we drink) cows milk all at once the day we brought her home. She didn't have any issues at all with the switch or for the 6 weeks we kept her on the bottle. We kept her on 2 bottles a day for a 1-2 weeks since that's what she was used to, then switched to 1 a day till we stopped.

Obviously goat's milk would be the first choice, but none of our goats have freshened yet, so that wasn't a reasonable option.

We also bottle fed for our neighbor when she had two orphans. She did a combination of goat's milk from her other goats and MannaPro Unimilk replacer- usually about 1/2 and 1/2 averaged over the day. We had them for 3-5 weeks and one had scours for 2 days, but not sure the cause, he made a full recovery. Honestly, cows milk would have been the same price- but they were her goats and seemed to do well so that's what we did.

 

[wooliewabbits]

I can get raw cows milk (parents have a dairy down the road) With cows, my stepdad always gives replacer, never cows milk. I hate to ask for so much milk, as times are hard for them. Hoping all will balance out once our other doe kids in 9 days. She's definitely a gallon a day girl. I have some frozen milk stored up and a friend willing to give me her frozen reserves. If I can get rid of them and someone else is willing to bottle feed them cows milk, then I'd be thrilled!
Thanks for the input.

 

[Pearce Pastures]

The only qualm with RAW cow's milk as a food source for your goats is the possibility of Johnes disease. Might want to look up some info on that to make sure it is what you want to do.