Feeding schedule for orphan boer kids

[Jcran]

Today, I brought home 4 orphan boer/kiko kids to raise for my 4-Hers. They came off a big cattle/goat ranch in the mountains south of here. They were essentially free, and everyone is having does this year(of the 24 bummer kids this woman had, only 4 were bucks!), so I jumped at the opportunity to get some kids that my 4-Hers will be able to have for fair. Anyhow, 3 of the 4 are about a week old, the 4th being tossed in for really free since he was "brought back from the dead". The 4th is maybe a day old? They are housed separately from my herd and will remain that way until they go to their 4-H homes in a few weeks. My question is on feeding. I am following the bottle feeding schedule that Jack and Anita Mauldin recommend. However, I've heard some of the 4-H dairy goat members feed A LOT more to their dairy doelings. I mean, the boer schedule tops out total milk per day from about 2-6 weeks old, at about 40 oz. per kid; broken up into feedings obviously. However, I believe one of the girls who is in meat goats AND dairy goats fed her dairy doe replacement doeling like a GALLON a day? I just want to be sure I'm feeding these guys correctly. The day old is only getting a couple ounces at a time, broken into many feedings. He is really tiny, about 4 or 5 lbs. I only took him because he was free and lord knows, I'm a sucker. He really enjoyed the Super Bowl tonight, curled up on our laps at the party we went to. Tomorrow, he's coming to school with me. I called my principal and she thinks it will be a really good responsibility project for my class to have for the week.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

My boer doelings were all pulled and raised right in the dairy doeling pens with them. I do start colostrum and the first milk the next day in bottles, we then move the lambar nipples onto lambar buckets that feed up to 12 kids at a time. 4 times a day as much as they will nurse. I love th buckets because it's hands free, I have a holder welded onto a rim that then has brackets that dig into the ground so it can't tip over. This gives you two hands to walk around the bucket and help stupid kids (usually bucks) attach the first few days or weeks. Yes my goal is for each kid to drink a gallon a day, but that doesn't happen for weeks. I move to 3 times a day when they are all (the pen of 6 or 8 or 10) eating agressively. They don't move to twice a day feedings until 12 weeks. I wean them when they wean themselves. The difference in full fed all the milk you want kids and those who are rationed is the reason why my nubian doelings at 8 months are over 100 pounds and bred. But then milk here is sold for $9 a gallon and I purchase day old milk cheap for them, so really milk is free Nothing funnier than when folks who know I milk goats for a living, see me at the store with a grocery cart full of milk!

Even if you choose not to do it that way, do make sure your kids are really eating, and eating good before you even start to wean. And don't wean them from calcium rich milk to feakin grass hay Vicki