Nigerian Dwarf Purebred Buck Double Registered w/blue eyes - $250
- Thread starter mikenandrea
- Start date
FlightsofFancy
Chillin' with the herd
Well, all I can say is that every time I enter his pen I fear I may have triplets in 5 months. 
He always gets me as I am leaving the pen. Let's me think he is a sweetie pie, then corners me. Silly boy!
The last time I was there my husband got to experience the infamous Rider first hand....er...um....leg. I kept yelling, "Just don't fall down!!! It will be much worse!"
Ahhhhh...... GOOD TIMES!!
He always gets me as I am leaving the pen. Let's me think he is a sweetie pie, then corners me. Silly boy!The last time I was there my husband got to experience the infamous Rider first hand....er...um....leg. I kept yelling, "Just don't fall down!!! It will be much worse!"
Ahhhhh...... GOOD TIMES!!
helmstead
Goat Mistress
lilhill
Loving the herd life
I LOVE it! 
ksalvagno
Alpaca Master
Something else to consider that hasn't been brought up yet. Bottle feeding is not fun. The novelty wears off very quickly (like in less than a day). The kids have to be fed on a schedule and you need to keep that schedule since they are depending on you for their nourishment. Your life will revolve around bottle feeding and you have to schedule things around the bottle feeding schedule.
True, so very true, and bottle babies do not have resistance to a lot of illnesses, so they tend to be more vulnerable to this and that. Once they are weaned it takes months for them to catch up with their dam raised peers.ksalvagno said:
Roll farms
Spot Master
In all fairness, not *all* bottle raised kids take months to catch up. I've been bottle raising 100% for 10 yrs and ours keep up just fine.
(Of course, since it's my 'job' and my life revolves around it, they get plenty to 'eat', and we've learned a few things.)
Our 3 keepers, born Feb '09, 2 Nubs and a Togg, are 90, 95, and 97# respectively, at 9 mos...one was a quad, the other 2 were triplets.
(That's out off 55 kids born here last year, the rest were sold, many did well at their respective shows or were bought as breeding stock.)
And since ours get colostrum from our herd, their disease resistance is just fine, tyvm....
I see your point when the occasional orphan or rejected kid has to be bottle raised, but I really dislike it when "all" bottle kids are labeled as frail.
(Of course, since it's my 'job' and my life revolves around it, they get plenty to 'eat', and we've learned a few things.)
Our 3 keepers, born Feb '09, 2 Nubs and a Togg, are 90, 95, and 97# respectively, at 9 mos...one was a quad, the other 2 were triplets.
(That's out off 55 kids born here last year, the rest were sold, many did well at their respective shows or were bought as breeding stock.)
And since ours get colostrum from our herd, their disease resistance is just fine, tyvm....
I see your point when the occasional orphan or rejected kid has to be bottle raised, but I really dislike it when "all" bottle kids are labeled as frail.
Dam raised kids sip, and seldom gorge. I feed every 2 hours around the clock with new borns, you can see kids who over eat even on that schedule. Bottle babies just don't get the low level immunities dam raised kids do. I'm not saying there is something wrong with bottle babies, I've had quite a few over the years. But for my money, babies do better on their moms. In a dairy herd, that's a different thing all together, udder management, and CAE protection makes it hard to consider dam raising.
