how long will kids nurse??

[trixiwick]

I noticed that the doe who delivered triplets last May was still in milk to some extent, didn't think much of it. We sold two out of her three kids and kept one doeling back for breeding. I just saw the doeling (who is now nearly a year old) nursing yesterday! Good lord. I guess it's normal? I'm shocked the doe stood still for it. How long do kids ordinarily nurse?

[dosthouhavemilk]

Some of our does will nurse their kids until close to 10 months. Some wean as early as 6 months.
In some cases, I will force wean doelings off their dams if the dam is going to be penbred back to their sires. So at around 7 months, the doelings are removed from the dams side.
Della was still nursing her dam when both of them were 2 months bred. Della was 9 months old at the time.
I have not seen a doe feeding her yearling daughter though. I will intervene first. I would worry some about that.
Most are weaned by 7-9 months by their dams.
Wethers are sorted out at about 10 months old as well, so anyone still nursing is force weaned at that stage.
I should point out that ours are mostly dairy does and Boer/Dairy crosses.
The higher the Boer the sooner they seem to wean their kids in our herd.
Our grade Boer doe, Twyla weaned her kids at 4 months old her first year here. I was shocked. We'd never had a doe wean her kids that early.

[DKWunlimited]

Along a simular note.. how long do they NEED to nurse? I have a doe that I am wanting to send to live at my sisters house. Her buckling is 3 months old ... If I seperate them, is he still needing to be bottle fed?

[dosthouhavemilk]

When I am pulling intact bucklings, I usually pull them off their dam between 2 and 3 months old. Or as soon as they can unsheath. Whichever comes first.

[mygoat]

Just as soon as I see a buckling unsheath, they're separated if they are meant for breeding or castrated. With proper feeding, a buckling can be taken from a dam at 8 weeks. Properly feeding a buckling can be tricky.

I bottle feed and dam raise my kids at LEAST till 3 months of age. I usually bottle raise or allow doelings to dam raise even longer because the longer they're on milk the better they grow - the larger they'll be by that successive breeding season and the more likely they are to be breeding size.

I usually won't feed longer than 3.5-4 months of age.

[dbarjacres]

I just pulled off an 11 m.o. mini mancha doeling. Enough is enough! Pulled a 7 m.o. as well the same day. Weather got nice enough I can finally use my summer paddocks/pastures again.

Just saw a really cute cartoon the other day in one of my mule magazines. Two guys were looking at a mare that had a "foal" nursing. However the foal was so big he had his mama's hind end a foot off the ground! The one guy said "guess it's time to wean 'im"! Yep!