Nothing to do with anything other than bottle babies (venting) :p

[chubbydog811]

I must be a horrible person for saying this, but I have to tell someone...

I absolutely, with out a doubt, DESPISE bottle babies!!!

I have the 2 that my doe rejected, and I am so sick of them already...They never stop screaming, if I go in to play with them, all they do is bite me and try to nurse (note- this is RIGHT AFTER I feed them)...They scream even when they are happy and playing!! Like the "I'm lost and hungry" scream, not the cute little ma...more like MMAAAAAAA!!...The high pitched kind (I cringe when I think of this)
They are driving me CRAZY!!! All I can say, is I am incredibly happy they are leaving this weekend or next. They have pushed me to the point that I bring a spray bottle with me every time I go to see them...Works great! but only for so long

I'm not sure if its just them, or if all of you have this problem, but I hate it! I dont like clingy, so that just makes it worse. My other bottle baby wasn't this bad at all! Maybe its just these 2??

Anyway, sorry, had to get that off my chest before I

This makes me rethink if I really want to start pulling kids at birth next year?

 

[ksalvagno]

I bet some of it is their personality. But I don't have experience with bottle kids yet. Since my experience with bottle feeding alpacas, I have no desire to bottle feed goats unless I have to. And alpacas aren't clingy but they need a much more intensive bottle feeding schedule.

 

[chubbydog811]

Ya...I would say it's their feeding schedule, but they have been like this since birth! So I'm going to say probably their personalities...They are under your feet clingy, not just clingy! My house kid was clingy, but he stayed close, he didnt say attached!

I usually dont like to pull the kids, but I'm going to have up to 10 goats bred next season, and that would be WAY too many kids to keep until they are 2 months old! Even if each doe only has one kid, or we lose some, that is still a lot!

 

[haviris]

Sounds like they may not be getting enough to eat.

Never had that problem, although my nubian doeling can be a loud mouth.

 

[Roll farms]

Usually, once mine get a belly full, they wander off and find something else to do.

 

[chubbydog811]

lol Well you guys are lucky!
I let them eat until they are done, since I only feed 2ce a day (they still did the yelling thing even when I was feeding them 5 times a day).
They will stop eating, and then yell some more...They really have been like this since birth...Literally, as soon as they came out they were loud mouths! It is moslty the buckling, then he gets the doeling going...GRRR!

Luckily, I just got confirmation that they are leaving this weekend!

 

[haviris]

Ditto. Or they may 'hang out' w/ me, but they aren't interested in eating once they are full.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Chubby, I agree with you. Back when I'd only raised a few bottle babies, I thought they were cute. Then after raising many more and a ton of bottle calves, the cuteness quickly wears off!!!

I had to bottle my 2 doelings this year, and they weren't too terribly obnoxious, but it was a constant battle to get them to stop chewing on my hair/ears/face/clothes/shoes/etc and get them to stop jumping on me! I coudlnt' walk anywhere without them trying to trip me. Yeah, eventually they'd wander off, but that was after 20 minutes of pushing them off me ever 2 seconds. :/

I much prefer dam raised babies!

 

[haviris]

I have 4 bottle kids and a bottle calf currently (actually just weaned the oldest kid), you won't see much difference in my bottle and dam raised kids, all are annoyingly friendly, just like I like them! My loudest are my dam raised kids, I'm constantly checking to make sure nothing is wrong, usually they've just lost sight of each other or their moms. Three of my bottle kids are pretty quiet, the noisiest one is the nubian, which is typical of the breed (the others are nigerian dwarfs). They all (dam or bottle raised) seem to go through a hair faze (well the nubian never did), which is pretty annoying, but they grow out of it.

 

[chubbydog811]

If Nubians are usually louder than the rest, then I am going to bet that's why these 2 are so obnoxious...The are mostly Nubian with a little Alpine. I have only had Lamancha cross bottle kids!
My only dam raised kid was MUCH worse than the bottle kids...I had to chase her around for 10 minutes before I could catch her...This was after playing with her for every day since she was born! Then when I weaned her, all she did was MAAAAMAAAA...!!!MAAA...I sold her pretty fast!

We all need to pool together and try to figure out how to stop the annoying biting!!

My orphan boy was awesome...I wish they all were like him!!