help weaning pygmy goat!!

[Farmer Connie]

aww he is beautiful the first picture is of my little bottle girl twinkle toes and the second are of my boys helping us fix up an old shed lol the darker one is jack and the lighter is what what ... I just love goats they are all so unique in character

Twinkle toes!! beautiful name for a beautiful goat! Your flock is so precious! Thanks for sharing.. We should compare notes sometime. Keep updating your thread, I'd like to know how all turns out. You are doing just fine and your flock is lucky to have you!

 

[lovemywhatwhat]

aww thank you will forsure and your lucky is lucky to have you lol his name fits well

 

[Goatgirl47]

Are you able to feed her goat milk in the bottle?

How old is she? From what I understand, it is highly beneficial to feed them some milk for about 4 or 5 months. (But now I can find no articles to support this... -sigh-)

That's what I like to do too (wean later), but it isn't always possible. I have an Alpine doe right now who I let nurse from her mother (our old milk goat) until her mother dried herself up. That doeling, along with her sister, were weaned at 7-8 months. I also bottle-fed my first bottle kid until she was 5 months.

 

[Goatgirl47]

They are all beautiful @lovemywhatwhat & @Farmer Connie!!

 

[Farmer Connie]

That's what I like to do too (wean later), but it isn't always possible. I have an Alpine doe right now who I let nurse from her mother (our old milk goat) until her mother dried herself up. That doeling, along with her sister, were weaned at 7-8 months. I also bottle-fed my first bottle kid until she was 5 months.

We have weaned as little as 30 days to 8 months. Depending on the Nanny's health status. Nursing causes nutrition depletion. Sometimes especially with triplets, takes the life right out of her. If her hips start to poke out, you want to limit access to her teets. We monitor the kids as they begin to eat along side of moma. As soon as they start to compete for the hard food and etc, we start the teet time limit, funneled down to total wean. Then the screaming begins! We have had some scream so long they lose they voice. We add a little honey to the feed to coat the throat. We have seen and learned a lot in only the ten years breeding our family pets. I love my flock! I feel like I am their Grandma in a sense..

 

[Alaskan]

If her hips start to poke out, you want to limit access to her teets.

Well... probably depends on the breed.

Any high production milk breed will have obvious hips (both cows and goats ).

It is better to watch the body condition score of the animal.

Here is an excellent video that goes over the body condition score for milk goats:

As long as you watch the feed of the milk goat, a gallon a day of milk production for over a year long lactation is easy to maintain.

Those ladies that produce 2 gallons a day, those are more difficult to keep the weight on!

However...your choice if you wanna drink the milk yourself, let the kids have it...or just let her dry up.

 

[Goatgirl47]

@Farmer Connie - you have weaned one as early as 30 days? I am curious, how did the kid do (grow)? I know the minimum that most people wean is 8 weeks.

We watched our doe closely while she was raising those two kids. She did just fine with little grain - and she was a French Alpine.
We also wean our calves at around a year old. But when those calves get to be around 2 months they are separated 24/7 but get to nurse 1-2 times per day. One to two months later we only let those calves nurse once a day from their mommas and only on the days we don't milk (usually Friday, Saturday, Sunday).

With our goats we do it a little differently. I've only had goats for 3 years, so am still learning. But, I do like to have my dam-raised kids nurse until they are at least 4 months old. We watch their dams carefully and if they are getting pulled down from the constant nursing and nagging of their kids, we separate them during the day as well as the night, letting them nurse a few times a day.

Right now what I do with my two Nubian milk does (one has a 2 month old kid on her and the other has a 4 month old) is when I milk (4-7 days a week) I separate the kids from around 4:00pm and milk the next morning somewhere between 8:00 and 10:00 am (I get a little lazy in the summer ). The momma with the older kid is as fat as a butter roll. We are watching them both closely though.

 

[Farmer Connie]

Well... probably depends on the breed.

Any high production milk breed will have obvious hips (both cows and goats ).

It is better to watch the body condition score of the animal.

Here is an excellent video that goes over the body condition score for milk goats:

As long as you watch the feed of the milk goat, a gallon a day of milk production for over a year long lactation is easy to maintain.

Those ladies that produce 2 gallons a day, those are more difficult to keep the weight on!

However...your choice if you wanna drink the milk yourself, let the kids have it...or just let her dry up.

Thanks for addressing that I should of added our particular breed! Thank you.. We don't raise dairy goats, we have Nigerian crosses. Jolly good show mate!

 

[Alaskan]

Too fat is also bad.... trying to get them at the perfect weight can be tricky, but it is worth it in the long run.

 

[Farmer Connie]

you have weaned one as early as 30 days? I am curious, how did the kid do (grow)? I know the minimum that most people wean is 8 weeks

Miss Pearl died from complications. The kids were over sized and we had our mobile vet intervene. She had internal bleeding we wrote off as just leaking after birth. We procrastinated on calling her and she was down before she arrived. She needed surgery long before that moment and she was far too week for any procedure and it was a horrible experience. She went in to a comatose state. Just 2 months after our bruiser buck caused our oldest nanny to paralysis from a Stroke. She was due to deliver in only 2 months at that time. It was a rough couple months for us.
Miss Pearls babies were so healthy and already on grains and grass, so that aspect was a relief to the situation. Little Bah Buh..is an angel! She goes where I go. And into everything!

Hard to collect bell peppers for dinner with my buddy hanging out!

Her sis is a hand full too.

"Thing 2 and Thing 1... They can do anything anything under the sun"!
My babies..