03/18/10, 01:09 PM
|
 |
Legally blonde!
|
|
Join Date: May 2003
Location: Oregon
Posts: 3,315
|
|
|
Wonderland I prefer handling bottle baby anything. What I have found working with both bottle raised and dam raised plus selling to people who say how sweet their dam raised are and then they get bottle babies from me. That they much prefer bottle babies when in comes to handling, milking, or just plain dealing with them.
Here is my theory why I like bottle babies versus dam raised. You can have some sweet dam raised and there are always exceptions BUT they NEVER fully trust you I have found. Bottle babies on the other hand have complete trust in you. So if something ever happened like them getting caught or getting spooked you are not going to spook them more because you are a safe zone to them. I don't know if I am doing very well explaining this. With dam raised we have found on our farm even if you are out there every day handling and loving on them they do become friendly but never like bottle babies because they never full trust you or other humans. Where as bottle babies...well all they have ever known is humans so of course they trust us.
I do think temperament comes into play also with just how wild dam raised will get. And even breeds in some cases. I used to help my friend milk her dam raised does and hooooboy you had to stand waaaaay back so they would even think of getting on the milk stand and if you went in the pen with them they would start running at hitting walls in a panic to get away if they thought you where going to do anything funny. So personally I prefer dealing with something that trusts you versus something that doesn't even more so since my girls are dairy does.
Okay for example I have a doe who was bottle raised and is my baby. She had complications during delivery for two years in a row (she likes having large babies no matter what buck used). The first time it was 2am and I was alone in the barn. I had to feel what was going on inside so I lubed up and got ready to go in. This doe just lay there while I went and felt around inside (she didn't like it) but she trusted me enough to lie still and let me do what needed done. Much the same thing with the second time this happened. The kid got stuck (dead buck kid probably around 13lbs) and it took me and my dad a good hour to get this kid unstuck and honestly I thought we would loose both. If she had been dam raised it would have been way harder because she would be stressing out on top of a difficult delivery.
Now like I said there are always exceptions to the rule and I have met some but that I believe totally has to do with temperament. I hope all this writing made some kind of sense! Sorry it is so long!
Justine
|
