New Kids!

[goats&moregoats]

Incredible cuteness!! . Welcome to the world of bouncing, prancing goat antics. It only gets harder not to add more from this point out!

 

[Meaghan]

Just got done feeding them for the first time. Emerald is mouthy! She got me good with one of her incisors jumping and biting for the bottle. The others are very well behaved with only the occasional headbutt, which I expected. They eat well and finish their bottles. They are also really interested in the Chaffhaye we have, and have been nibbling at the bucket of it I put in their pen. I also gave them a bucket half full of water.

The breeder had them on 2x a day feedings of about 18 ounces each for the three average sized does and 15 ounces for the littlest doe (she won't drink more than that). But I was under the impression that kids should be fed at least 3x per day until they are 8 weeks, just in smaller amounts at each feeding. Is that right, or should I stick to 2x a day? She's only been doing 2x per day for a few days now, and the kids would not object to taking a bottle an extra time per day, I'm sure.

 

[Southern by choice]

They are adorable!



How old are the girls?

 

[Meaghan]

Just over four weeks. The brown pair were born on January 1st and the black pair were born on January 2nd.

 

[Southern by choice]

Roll farms is not really around anymore but she has many articles and was a walking book of knowledge.

Below is a link to one of her post with another link to her articles on Bottle Feeding. The old articles are archived from the old site.
We alter ours from hers just because we have little bitty goats that are only 3lbs at birth. Rolls is awesome!

http://www.backyardherds.com/threads/bottle-babies.15681/#post-213600

 

[Meaghan]

That's a great resource, thank you!

It sounds like I suspected, they should be on three bottles a day still and be eating a little less at each feeding. I'll have to give that a try, although I will adjust the times a bit as I prefer to be up later than earlier.

It's good to know that the littlest girl isn't eating too much less than the recommended amount. She's about 15lbs and is growing well, she just started off small and can't keep up with the others that were born at almost twice her weight.

 

[Meaghan]

They are doing well on three bottles a day!

Everyone but little Sapphire finishes the bottles of about 16 ounces and wants more. Sapphire is eating about 13-14 ounces consistently.

I really need to get a bathroom scale so that I can start tracking their weights. All of them look great and are eating some regular orchard/timothy/clover mix hay that I have for my rabbits/guinea pigs (just indoor pets) as well as the Chaffhaye. We haven't given them any grains yet because we're waiting to get a few large outdoor storage barrels before opening up and mixing the grains we have.

Still a bit torn as to whether to give them straight grains or to sprout. Has anyone done sprouting here? Do you like it better than giving whole grains? The mix we are using is one from the Land of Havilah farm with barley, oats, and BOSS.

I love having the babies! They are so much fun.

 

[goatboy1973]

Congrats!!! I love kidding season with all the little goats jumping around like bunnies. They provide hours of free entertainment and tons of photo ops.

 

[Meaghan]

Just a question regarding bottles. The breeder gave us nipples that snap onto soda bottles, but the soda bottles are collapsing and getting gross and can't be washed. What sort of bottles do you guys use? Where can I buy them? TSC only has 2 quart ones and those are far too big.

Sorry I'm not on much anymore, our internet at the new house doesn't like BYHs or TEGs sites. After just a few clicks it refuses to load the page and just dies. The only way I can post is on my cell phone which takes a while.

 

[Pearce Pastures]

I hate those snap on nipples. For Nigerian Dwarfs, we use the red and yellow pritchard nipples and for Boers, we buy the gray Lambar type. However, for the actual bottle, we do use pop ones. The best I have found are Sprite bottles--they are squattier and thicker than others so they don't collapse and fit well in microwave. We wash them immediately after use and discard any that we neglected to clean right away. If they get funky looking, they get tossed.