Can I have it both ways?

[lilredhen]

I can't decide if I want to bottle-feed or let the dam nurse her kids. Can I do both?

I want the kids to be friendly but don't want to be tied down with feeding this time of year. If I could give them a bottle once a day or so for a few weeks I could deal with that. But I wonder if it would be confusing for them. Has anyone tried this?

[hoofinitnorth]

In my limited experience, bottles don't make friendly babies, they make pushy babies. I only bottle-fed at events last year and that's the only difference I had. Those that never got a bottle were way less pushy than those that did.

ALL the goats I've kidded here are friendly. And ALL of them were dam-raised. I do have a couple that are less friendly than the others, but not so that they don't come up to you for attention. I have a few that I bought from others that weren't friendly when they arrived, but now they are. They were not bottle-fed either.

A couple of tips to raising friendly kids:

If at all possible, be there at the birth.

Breathe all over their faces when you first get them. Let them get used to your smell and even your breath (especially if you eat meat). If they don't ever learn to fear the smell of a carnivore's breath, it helps a lot, IMO. Maybe it's silly, but it's something that was told to me when I started and I have done it from day one and I think it really does help.

Spend time with them, especially when they are little. Avoid scaring them and turning them off of you. If mom is friendly, that helps a LOT, as the kids will take their cues from her.

I pick up my babies ALL the time (most of them BEG to be picked up and as a result, most of the adults now beg to spread out across my lap and chew their cud!). I try not to hold them for too long, though some of them really come to enjoy that.

When I had a sick wether-to-be this year, he slept swaddled on my chest for two full nights. Ever few hours I got up, cleaned up any mess he made in his towel with a warm bath and a blow dry, reswaddled him in a clean towel, fed him, medicated him, and went back to bed. This boy is now the friendliest of all my little boys and he comes looking for me, talking and flagging his tail until I either pick him up or go to him and lavish him with affection. Can you guess which one he is on my wethers page? Hehehehehe...

SPOILED GOATS! lol

[Laverne]

My dam raised kids are also super friendly. I imprint at birth like many people do with horse foals. They want attention from me so bad and it's not for food. They just want to be affectionate. They also love to sit on my lap and chew the cud and get petted and feel secure. I'm all for dam raising and giving attention to them eveyday.

[Bricheze]

I bottle raise my kids. But only because I want the best milk production out of the doe. if you just spend like 2 hours a day with them for the first week and then an hour or so a day after it will make them very friendly, probably just as friendly as my hand raised goats. O'course if you want a whether it really is worth it to bottle raise them, I have a whether to be laying on the couch next to me right now. He sleeps in bed with me every night too (lol and he is now 5 weeks old). But he is going to be my backpacking buddy, so it's important that he is more used to me then other goats. I plan to have him sleep with me in my sleeping bag on cold nights!

But if it is just some doelings or bucklings (or both) they will be plenty friendly if you spend time with them. My 2 other doelings were dam raised, but if you sit down they will climb right into your lap and lay down. Only one really appears to know her name though (the one *I* raised, lol my friend played with the other one for the 2 hours a day)

[mpete]

What I did was I kept mom and babies in seperate pens, then I would go down there and let momma feed them and then move her out (they were in adjacent pens so they could talk and everything), so the babies love me just as much as her cuz they associate food with me just as much as her...

[lilredhen]

Thanks for your replies.

I agree with you; my bottle babies are extremely friendly but very pushy!

My dam-raised kids were somewhat friendly once I could catch them. I was there when they were born, always kissed their faces and held them for maybe 30-60 min each day. Shouldn't that be plenty? Once they became hard to catch by 3 weeks old I could not keep this up. Their dam was not friendly so maybe that was the real problem.

I also tried to give them treats, but at that age they don't like anything but milk.

My doe that's due next week is a lot more friendly than the last. If I have the same problem again I wonder if I can give them a bottle sometimes as their treat or if it would cause "nipple confusion"?

[lilredhen]

mpete I like your idea. I could put babies in an adjacent yard part time once they're say a week old. That way when they see me coming they know it's time for feeding and attention!

[hoofinitnorth]

Well, there's always the individual personality factor! Sometimes you just get less friendly goats but it should not be the norm if you treat them all well and spend time with them (AND their parents like you).

[nehimama]

I've given supplemental bottles to kids that were nursing off of and being raised by their dams. Worked out well for me.

NeHi

[hoofinitnorth]

I don't do treats either but I've seen raisins work well at other farms and they aren't terrible for the goats (won't affect milk if only a few are fed unlike commercial treats that have lots of chemicals and preservatives).

Have you made any progress with mom? I had a wild child here and by the time I freshened her (her second time but my first), she was a sweet, sweet girl and really loves me now. She is the first to the milk stand every day, by her own choice, and I don't even have to lock her in or give her any grain. She doesn't like strangers, but she will always come to me (unless she wants to play!).

[Backfourty,MI.]

I always dam raise our kids & they are all very friendly. Just likem Laverne said, mine too climb all over me, want my attention most of the time we are down to their area's.
We also take care of our goats twice a day so they see us quite often, besides the times we are out with them just to let them out in the feilds too.

[lilredhen]

Looks like I'm in the minority with the bad luck I've had in this area.

I have since sold this wild mom and the kids, but she was a very anti-social goat! She would spend weeks staying away from the herd, then push her way in and take over as queen. Later after being kept seperate the cycle would repeat.

I can't imagine I would have so much trouble with my other doe, Bess. She was wild when I got her but now she loves me to pieces!

Nehi thanks for responding. At what age did you start the bottle-feeding? You didn't have a hard time teaching them to take the bottle?

[moonspinner]

I dam raise and bottle supplement those kids who are more aloof or smaller kids, usually the littlest of triplets. It has worked great for me. No confusion on the kid's part and even just a bit of bottle milk does the trick. I start out at 2 bottles a day and reduce to one. I have successfully introduced bottles even a month down the line. Doesn't take hardly any time and you have kids who associate you with something good!

[Wags]

I usually dam raise, but this year had a doe die when her kids were just two weeks old. So we had to bottle feed. The buckling became very pushy and mouthy, and the doeling shied away from people, only coming close when it was feeding time. However, now that her brother has been sold she has blossomed into a sweetie that loves attention, without being pushy.

I usually start separating the kids overnight from mom when they are two weeks old. So they associate me with both getting penned up at night and being released to nurse in the morning. They will come up to me for pats in the pasture, or at least hang around when I'm out there. And if I sit down I usually get a crowd, with the occasional one crawling into my lap for a short snuggle. (They are Nigerians, and seem to stop wanting to be lap goats by the time they are about 6 months old.)

All that to say, I think the key to friendly goats is frequent handling rather than bottle feeding. And goats all have their own personalities, some are just naturally more people friendly than others. For example, I have a buckling right now that came over to me when he was first born and introduced himself. (I wasn't present for the birth) He is dam raised and still follows myself and my children around like a puppy dog.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

The vast majority of dam raised kids are only friendly to their owners, if even to them. Yes you can teach them the milking routine, but try to catch them any other time and it's impossible. how many threads do we have on here of folks trying to tame down wild goats, those wild goats are dam raised.

It takes more time spent bonding and keeping them tame as it does for me to heat treat 3 gallons of milk and feed a group of 12 kids. I can then sell at anytime from birth to before weaning kids to others to continue the bottle feeding.

Most are letting kids nurse untested dams and perpetuating CAE, selling untested kids and adding more people to this forum and others whose goats are positive when fist tested.

Choosing to bottle or dam raise is about your management, nobody elses. I would never have dam raised kids. I would never purchase a dam raised kid.

Dam raised kids can't be sold until weaned, that leaves you with kids who you have no intention of keeping, drinking all your milk that you could use or sell...or why else do you have dairy goats?

Dam raised kids catch mastitis from their dams, and most don't test for subclinical staph, I dont' want this in my herd. CAE is just the tip of the iceberg of milk borne pathogens that are stopped when you heat treat and pasturise. You also have more control over the colostrum in your herd and can feed your older does colostrum to all kids, making healither kids. If you don't sell breeding stock or don't have dairy goats than most of this is moot. Vicki

[hoofinitnorth]

Well I must be the exception because I sell breeding stock and I have dairy goats, I dam-raise my kids and the kids I have sold are EXTREMELY friendly to ALL, not just their new owners. Even those out of the does that were originally not so friendly (but are now).

With the exception of the truly nutty goat, "wild" goats, in my experience, are simply not handled enough, if at all, early in their life.

Here, most everyone is testing now and those that are testing are keeping negative herds. We are lucky!

Just like a bottle baby, dam-raised kids can be sold at any time, as long as you are able to supplement them with a bottle, if need be. My dam-raised kids never have a problem trying the bottle for an event and never have a problem going back to the teat right after. My friend has similar experiences, with only one baby this year that does not like the bottle at all. And we can't legally sell milk here, but could do shares.

We also milk our does twice daily, wether they are feeding a single or quads. We save all the extra colostrum and since we're all tested negative (with a long history of negatives behind the parent herds), we can give the colostrum from the oldest does to all the kids.

[Wolf Flower]

Originally Posted by Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians

Dam raised kids catch mastitis from their dams, and most don't test for subclinical staph, I dont' want this in my herd. CAE is just the tip of the iceberg of milk borne pathogens that are stopped when you heat treat and pasturise.

Gosh, it makes you wonder how wild goats ever evolved, or survive to this day, without humans around to pasteurize their dams' milk for them.

I'm new to the dairy thing, but I know this is a heated debate. I just have my li'l family milker/pet goat (CAE negative of course) and when she freshens I hope to allow the kid to nurse AND train it to the bottle. Don't hate me!

I suppose if dairy goats were my livelihood I'd have a different view on dam-raising vs. bottle-raising, but to a hobby farmer with a single doe, it seems an odd concept to treat mother's milk like poison. I mean, *I* drink my goat's milk raw... but I am not a baby goat.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

Why would I hate you for an opinon?

Your goat is tested CAE negative, somewhere likely in her ancestory is a CAE prevention doe, which now affords you the luxury of being able to choose to let your kids nurse her negative milk. So yes, when we cause mastitis in our does...alot of the time by only letting a few kids nurse a doe with way more colostrum than the kids need, way more milk than they will ever consume, her udder struts, she leaks milk and bacteria gets up in the udder. Your goats are bred for milk production....goats in the wild are not. A wild goat has one kid, and a milk supply that will only support that one kid...if the kid is very very lucky. Hopefully your dairy goat you are planning on milking has a tiny bit more milk than this, so you can't use 'natural' ideas. Once you close the barn door on a goat, she is no longer 'natural'.

Congrats on your wise purchase. Vicki

[Goat Servant]

Last yr was the first to test for Cae & CL (neg) Its my girls job to feed their kids, not mine. But then again we raise meat goats.
If someone needs supplement of course they get it. Most of the dam raised kids are fairly friendly at least to us.
Bottle feds are obnoxiously friendly.