bucket vs dam meat goat weight gains

[mpete]

I am trying something new with my August due kids. I am going to bucket raise them because:
My March crop: 18 kids born, all of my bucket babies are at or above market weight(54-68 lbs), my dam raised kids are all 10 lbs or more light. All have the same sire. 5 of the dams are sisters. Even my dairy kids (bucket babies) that were born in April are 50+ lbs. Besides, I am milking 6 does, and with my April babies weaning soon, the August crop can start in so I am not wasting milk!

Has anyone else ever experimented?
Why would there be such a drastic difference in the weights?

[MaddieLynn]

Seems like the simplest answer is that the bucket babies are getting more food.

[chamoisee]

How are the dam raised kids being managed? Are they being held off the dams overnight while the bucket kids get to eat free choice? Is the grain and hay the same? Are some of the dam raised kids triplets? Are the dams of the dam raised kids getting the same amount of grain and feed as the does who are not raising kids?

I was never able to get my bottle babies to look even half as good as the dam raised kids.

[mygoat]

Do you practice the same cocci prevention/deworming with both groups?

My bottle babies are smaller than may dam raised kids. Then again, my bottle babies are both girls (one dairy, one boer), and the dam raised kids are all bucklings. My two older meat wethers and my two bottle girls were all born the first week of March. Bottle kids are about 50lbs, raised on cocci prevention and regular wormings. Dam raised kids are about 60lbs, no cocci prevention, two wormings.

[luvzmybabz]

mygoat why no cocci prevention on the dam raised?

[mygoat]

Because catching wild dam raised kids for 5 days in a row to syringe nasty tasting stuff down their throats is imposible. Especially since I'm away most of the week and my dad would have to do it for a few days on his own. NOT happening. We don't tame our dam raised meat goat kids.

We used medicated grain this year - rumensin at 20g per ton. The idea is to start feeding the entire doe herd the medicated grain about a month before they start to kid, to reduce the cocci in the environment and thus lower the number that the newborn kids will be exposed to. Until kids are weaned, I'm keeping does on grain anyways... not a ton, but enough to help with energy demands of the does.

Bottle raised kids are easy to do prevention with - I put it in their milk. They're also much easier to catch for deworming. And they also get medicated grain now that they're eating enough of it to make a difference.

Next year I plan on using Tolturazil (sp?) or Baycox. It's a one dose cocci treatment. I figure I can manage to catch all the kids for one day every 3 weeks. Have to order it from Canada or Australia though, it's not sold in the US.

[LoneStrChic23]

My bottle kids were bigger than my dam raised kids... I did the same coccidia prevention in both, same deworming.

The difference, in mine I think, was the feed. I make sure my kids get plenty of milk (My March kids were drinking 3+ quarts a day each at the end of April/begining of May), & they also get free choice meat goat pellets.

My dam raised kids didn't have access to the free choice meat goat pellets..... No dam raised kids this year (last year chasing dam raised for coccidia meds ruined me on dam raising, lol) But despite everything being the same as fas as meds, my bottle kids had better monthly gains.

[mpete]

Good questions:
They are with dams 24/7. Bucket babies usually have milk in the bucket.
The medications were given just about the same, except deccox m was a daily bucket thing and I had to catch the little squirmy brats for their "cough syrup tasting stuff"
With the exception of 1 dam, the dams were maintained well.

I just thought of another difference. When I lost my does, I had to buy cow milk from the store to feed the babies until my dairy does kidded... would that make that big of a difference?

I am interested in the one-dose treatments you mentioned... can we order it if it's not sold here?

[mygoat]

Yes, there are places to get the 1 dose stuff. Here it is from canada, same drug as Baycox you might have heard of, but I imagine shipping it in from canada is cheaper than getting name brand baycox from australia...

Toltrazuril. Knew I spelled it wrong.

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My bottle girls were getting a half gallon 2x per day, shared between the two of them. Or, a half gallon per day each. Just cut them back to 1 half gallon 1x per day, born first week of march. We're just ready to wean 'em. They get called into the milkroom with the dairies in the evening, and allowed to eat as much grain as they want from a pan on the floor, instead of getting milk. Hoping they'll both be breeding size before December or so.

[chamoisee]

For grain and cocci med on my dam raised kids, I made a creep feeder with the medicated grain in a small pen that the adult goats couldn't access.