Finally Found You-Newbie Here...

[SunKissedAcres]

Well, I spent all week reading through the old posts at greenspun.com. I truly enjoyed it, but wanted to find all of you, so that I could get in on the fun!

I'm fairly new to goating, and just became serious a few months ago. I'm still working on my medicine cabinet, kidding supplies, etc. I have boers, and nubians along with mixes of boer, nubian, or togg.

I've got a kid, who is a week old. She's a bottle baby, as mom rejected her. She started having diarrhea Saturday morning. I was reading posts, and think that my problem might be that she's on milk replacer. I guess I should switch her to cow's milk.

Question: Do I keep her on cow's milk until she's weaned? (Weaning is at what age exactly?)

This just figures you know, because I JUST started milking 5 days ago, and got the human kids to finish the last gallon of cows milk 2 days ago. I was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited that I wasn't going to be buying gallons of milk anymore! Now I find out, I've got months of buying milk right back in my budget! Sheesh!

Any advice for a newbie is T R U L Y appreciated! I hope to be here most days, or at least once a week or so. With milking now, it's getting really busy around here.

Thanks to all who reply.

[Shazza]

Well here in Oz we dont feed cows milk to goat kids...and we feed kids till at least 6 mths for doe kids and a little longer for bucks. Which you will find out is at least twice as long as fellow American goat owners do. If we supplement it is with milk replacer.

[momtoseven]

You can feed her some of your family's goat milk (if you can spare any... my human kids drink all of ours, lol) You might also cut back some on the replacer because too much milk or replacer can cause scouring.

I'm a newbie here, too, btw. Someone else may be of more help =0).

ETA that the cow milk replacer is a gallon of cows' milk with a little poured off, 1 can condensed milk, and a cup of buttermilk mixed well. Also, Shazza, that's really interesting! How much milk do you give kids a day (and how many times do you feed them a day) after about three months of age?

[mygoat]

Yup, get her off of that replacer! It's evil stuff, lol.

If you've got a dairy doe you can just feed the doeling her milk. Pasteurize with a double broiler or a 20.00 multi-cooker from walmart if you're worried about CAE. (I'd pasteurize if you don't know your doe's status... or if you don't want to pasteurize, get your doe tested) Personally, buying cow's milk for a single doeling would be what I would do. Currently I'm buying cow's milk for my three dairy doelings, going through exactly a gallon per day. They're 8 weeks old and getting 14 oz 3x per day... Would feed them more but I can't afford it, and they're doing OK on what they're getting. As soon as my dairy does freshen here in about a week, my doelings will be getting pretty much all the pasteurized goat's milk they want, lol.

Weaning should be done at the earliest at 3 months. I normally feed my doelings till they are 4-5 months of age to ensure good growth and breedability by the next fall.

[deetu]

I went to my hay guy as he raises cows and got milk from him. It was no big deal for him and I brought easy to fill containers (that fit in my refrigerator).

[Shazza]

By the time kids are over 3 mths of age I would be feeding twice a day and almost up to 1 litre per feed...depending on the kid. At that age they are also getting hay....I'm not a big fan of feeding kids any grain...mine would get oaten chaff and lucerne chaff mixed.
I've never had to add replacement as I feed the kids what I milk minus some for the house...I will admit that I have stretched it out by adding some powdered cows milk not more than 15% of their feed.