Feeding DAIRY kids-am I screwing up?

[Jcran]

My daughter has 4 nubian kids, three does and a buck. They were born February 24th and 25th, about 9 hours apart, so essentially they are the same age. These are kids out of her first dairy goat project animals so we are raising our own kids for the first time. The does we are milking are a nubian and a boer and both are giving only about a quart a day right now. The kids are getting 8-10 oz 4 times a day right now. So I am pasteurizing the goat milk and then adding whole cows milk to make enough for the babies. My neighbor who is on their 3rd year with dairy goats says we are really overfeeding the babies and they should only be getting goat milk. Is she right? The babies seem ok and are perky and jumping about. We always gave boer kids cows milk (I USED to add the buttermilk and condensed milk until someone said that was a waste of my time) if we had to bottle feed and they were fine. I'm feeling a bit "judged" by my neighbor even if they are wonderful people. Does anyone want to weigh in on what we are doing right/wrong/whatever? Thanks!

[CaliannG]

8-10 ounces 4x a day for nubian and/or boer kids that are about a week old sounds just about right to me. Some eat a bit more, some a bit less.

On a CAE prevention program, the babies should only be getting pasteurized milk....but goats milk, cows milk, mixture of the two, is fine. What you want to avoid at all costs is that powdered milk replacer.

If you have active, healthy kids, I wouldn't change a darn thing.

~grinz~ Tell your neighbor that s/he is STARVING the babies, and who would be so cruel?

[Jcran]

We are TOTALLY into preventing CAE; I just don't want them to blow up, LOL. And I have never had luck with replacer with my boer kids, so I fed them only whole cow's milk from the store. Thanks, I'm feeling a bit less "wrong".

[CaliannG]

Lots of folks, me included, have used whole cow's milk from the store for bottle babies. It is not IDEAL. The absolute ideal would be a boatload of their own, disease-free, mama's milk. But nowadays, who gets their absolute ideal? I promise you, I do not have my "ideal" barn!

If you HAVE plenty of goat's milk, sure! It would be best to feed them that. If you don't, however, store-bought cow's milk is the next, best thing.

Now, if your neighbor wants to donate enough goat's milk to make up the difference, at store-bought cow's milk prices, I wouldn't turn them down. If not, they need to keep it to themselves, though.

[Laverne]

I agree with Caliann. 'The proof of the pudding is in the eating'. Many use whole cows milk with excellent results. Milk replacer is known for killing kids so many avoid it like the plague.
From what I've read, 4 times a day for a week or more is good, and let them have their fill at each feeding. Sounds like you are doing a good job.

[LoneStrChic23]

My bottle baby is doing great on a mixture of store bought cows milk and goats milk.

I pasturize the milk from my mini doe and feed all of it to my bottle baby..... 1/4-1/2 of his milk is cows milk & when Tootsie's production tanked from me taking her babies, I had to feed straight cows milk. No problems and he's a big, playful, healthy boy

[6e]

We took on a bunch of bottle babies and there was no goat milk to put them on and no cow milking at the moment to get raw milk so all they've been getting is whole milk from the store and they're doing just fine on it.

[Creamers]

You're feeding fine - I work up to 60 oz a day and then down from there -

[motdaugrnds]

Sounds good to me the way you're doing it.

If I'm bottle feeding from birth, I will wake them up to eat (feeding them as much as they will eat). If they're awake, I let them ask them for the milk; then I let them eat as much as they want. I use the milk from their own dams to do this!

[LomahAcres]

Yup, just adding my chime in - you're doing fine. I let them eat as much as they want and my youngest 3 day old Nubian is at 48 oz a day. I'm so happy, I just found a cow dairy herd with raw milk at $2.00 a gallon and am raising kids on that this year. When I can sell my goat milk for human consumption at $8.00 a gallon, it just makes more sense and the kids do great on it. When feeding free choice my Nubian kids will eat up to 3-4 quarts of milk a day. Most my girls have triplets, some quads, and the occasional quints. There's no way my milkers could hit 3+ gallons a day to feed them all. When we use to dam raise, bottle babies would grow faster on free choice milk then dam raised kids, unless there was only 1 kid per doe - then they'd be about even. Pour milk into your kids and people start gawking at how fast they grow.

[pookshollow]

If you were feeding them too much, they'd be scouring. If they're bright-eyed and lively, they're fine.

[julieq]

Sounds to me like you're doing wonderfully well. We feed our little ND bottle babies a combination of raw goats milk and off the shelf cows milk four times a day and they eat until they're full. No problems at all.