Help- Fell in love with runt

SSDubay · #1 05/04/14, 12:10 AM

Hello,
As a new goat owner, I have been reading over your posts. However, I do have a question or two. I fell in love with our rescued nigerian doeling. Her dam left her out in the cold wind at birth, so we brought her in to warm up and bottle feed. She is tiny with one odd eye and is much less stable on her feet than the other kids her same age. (11 days) However, I just adore her. She sleeps in a dog crate and runs around the house.

Do you have any suggestions for getting her the best start, health wise, given her rough start and tiny size? We are feeding her whole cow milk with an occasional pinch of baking soda.

When is it best to reintroduce her back to the herd and how? She already thinks she is a person and is very seperate from the other kids and does when we take her down to the big pen.

Can she be house trained at all?

Thank you so much for any help or suggested reading links!

~Summer

where I want to · #2 05/04/14, 08:54 AM

I have no experience with your situation and hopefully the others herem, much more experienced, will have good info.
The way introduced the bottle baby to the group was simply to take them with me out into the field for walks. They soon found themselves playing with the other kids while I kept an eye out that none of the does took any serious action against them. In otherwords I played mom.
Eventually they just joined the kid piles at night and were on their own.
But I have never tried it with a physically less able kid so I would wait until I was sure she could at least hold her own.

CAjerseychick · #3 05/04/14, 11:35 AM

Maybe some calf manna to bulk her up and I have seen the Nigie babies in diapers to run around the house....

farmmaid · #4 05/04/14, 11:54 AM

Give her a little milk often........... Keep a bottle on the counter and as you pass, grab the bottle and feed for 30 seconds.

**mygoat** · #5 05/04/14, 03:14 PM

If she were mine...

I'd feed her as much of a bottle as she wants until she gets up to 12-16oz 3x per day. I feed my full size kids 20oz 3x per day.

Start creep feeding a lamb grower pellet as soon as she'll take it. quality hay and/or alfalfa pellets as well. Free choice baking soda and minerals. They'll likely start nibbling all of this at around 2 weeks of age. The more milk you feed, the less 'hard' food they'll eat.

If you want this girl to grow, give her coccidia prevention starting at 3 weeks of age and every 3 weeks until she's around 4-5 months of age. There are many options available. I use toltrazuril and the medicated feed, here. Medicated feed is often not adequate alone to supply them with enough meds to prevent coccidia, especially in young animals or in animals that are getting so much milk they aren't eating a ton of hard food.

I'd wean a runty doe around 4-5 months of age so long as she'll take milk that long. Not only does that make it easier to give her the coccidia prevention (most you can put right in the milk instead of fighting them) but milk will encourage growth. I would cut back to 2x per day feedings at 3 or so months, to encourage them to take in more of the hard feed.

I usually deworm when I vaccinate at 8 weeks, and then again when I think of it (Usally around 16 weeks I'd bet.) Take fecals in and deworm accordingly is best, but I don't always have time to wait around for a penful of kids to poo, and I know they don't have the immunity levels that only come with exposure and maturation of their immune system.

Ford Zoo · #6 05/04/14, 03:46 PM

Right now I have a 7 week old "special needs" kid. We noticed he just was not thrifty and pulled him from mama at 12 days old. He only a few days ago started calling for his bottle (we have kept him with bottle kids younger than him so he should have caught on), he takes no interest in other feed, coughs abit after his bottle, sometimes only takes 2 bottles a day, and his growth is pathetic. Don't have a weight on him, but his current bottle buddy born 3 weeks ago is surpassing him. And at 7 weeks old, his little horns are only maybe 1/4", while his dam raised brother is huge and has horns over an inch long.

So while I have never seen this, my thought is that I'm just going to keep trying and see what happens with this little guy.

Belfrybat · #7 05/04/14, 05:18 PM

Pictures? Please, pretty please.

punchiepal · #8 05/04/14, 07:51 PM

The most our ND's take from a bottle is 3 8oz in a day and that is somewhere around a month old. I have had some runts be ok, some seem ok only to loose them when a little older, and some just don't thrive at all.

Good Luck!

SSDubay · #9 05/05/14, 12:53 AM

Thank you so much for the replies. Molly, my little runt, is eating 3oz of cow's milk every three-ish hours. She can go 6+ hours at night. So far, she seems to be improving day by day. However, with her bad eye, she is still much less stable than the other kids. She is also still tiny in comparison to her sister. Hopefully, she continues to improve even if slowly.

My concern is that I will have a house goat. I already have eight children, a dog, a cat, a bird, and a gecko in the house. I really need for this little sweetie to end up back out with the other does, frolicking on the rock pile and eating the brush.

The pictures are of her with my youngest daughter and one of my boys. They all adore her. My daughter calls her "goatie" and wants to pet her all the time.

Thank you again!

~Summer

poppypatchFarm · #10 05/05/14, 01:17 AM

We have raised several runt kids weighing only about 1 pound at birth. Think the most important thing is to get milk in them often in small amounts. You can add a little half & half to the cow's milk for Nigerian kids since normally they would be getting a higher butterfat milk especially for a smaller one that needs to put on some bulk.

Frosted Mini's · #11 05/05/14, 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by punchiepal

The most our ND's take from a bottle is 3 8oz in a day and that is somewhere around a month old. I have had some runts be ok, some seem ok only to loose them when a little older, and some just don't thrive at all.

Good Luck!

Is that as much as yours will take, or as much as you ever offer them? Mine will definitely eat more than that, if I offer (which is probably why my Nigerians get so chubby sometimes, including the babies!

).

punchiepal · #12 05/05/14, 06:26 PM

That is the most we offer them. I looked for several bottle feeding schedules for ND's and kinda did an average to make an excel sheet for bottle feeding. The common thing I noticed was that they seemed to say not over 24 oz a day for ND's or topped there. I am sure that mine would eat more, however it also gives them the incentive to start trying other things such as creep feed, hay and grass.

Frosted Mini's · #13 05/05/14, 06:54 PM

Okay, thanks for the clarification, I was just wondering if mine are weird or something. LOL. I feed in lambar, so not real easy to control feedings so much.

I have plenty of milk anyway, so might as well not let it go to waste.

TeenyTinyFarm · #14 05/05/14, 07:33 PM

Holy stinks! She is cute. I wouldn't want her out of the house either!