What to feed bottle babies.

[Farmer Kitty]

I feed newborns 4 feedings of colostrum over 24 hours, then go to 3 bottles a day (as much as they will take) if they're eating well, until 8 weeks. Then I take them to 2 bottles a day (providing they're eating grain and hay by now), at 10 weeks they go to 1 bottle, and by 3 mos. old I've weaned them.

I've raised everything from pygmies to boers that way and so far it's worked well...probably only by shear dumb luck b/c when I started out, there wasn't near the info out there available, online or in books and magazines, that there is available today.

When I started, you couldn't get good kid replacer anywhere near here. It was the "multi species" or cow-type only, and either I'm an idiot who couldn't mix it, or it wasn't well-tolerated by the kids I had, because I really did have scour issues until I switched to cow's milk.

As always, I say do what works best for you, and I'm glad those of you who use replacer have good luck w/ it.
I just never did.

It's my guess that you didn't have a choice of a good quality milk replacer. It's to bad that the stores/mills near you didn't give you a good choice. I know here the best choices are found in the feedmills. The farm supply stores just have okay stuff.

 

[Griffin's Ark]

Some people swear by whole milk and some by replacer. The big thing is protein and fat. Whole milk does not have the protein or fat that a kid needs. It does work and the kids do tolerate it better, but in the long run it is worse for the kid. We used several milk replacers this year on four Nubian Kids. The best replacer by a long shot was Sav-a-Kid. The Purina gave uncontrolled scours, and the other was made by Manna pro I think, it was ok but still we fought scours. The Sav-a-Kid made out life much easier, but agian you have to be ready to pay the price. Our feed bill rose by $50 a month, but the boys are healthy, happy and of course noisy!

Chris

 

[haviris]

I've never used replacer, so I don't comment on that. I do use whole milk and if I'm asked what to feed that is what I recommend. I figure it's one of those things where you use what works for you, but I don't bash the replacer, just don't have any experience w/ it. (I'm pretty sure you can't get kid replacer here locally anyway, I know you can get it at Atwoods, one hour away, but haven't check to see what kinds they carry)

My kids do great on the whole milk, they not only survive, but they thrive, so I figure why mess w/ what works?