The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: maddy on April 09, 2013, 06:41:14 am
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Last night my a/n x boer Audrey had 4 kids. I made sure they all fed first. I am obviously going to have to supplement them but have never done this before - always leave the twins and triplets with mum and they have managed.
Do I just feed whoever looks hungry? What should I get to feed them?
Thank you for any help as urgently needed.
First 2 are small but up and about and the 2nd 2 are bigger.
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We tend to take all of ours off in the first week and bottle them anyway, this year we have left our Boers on mums so we are totaly alien to mums raising their own kids.
if you have other goats that are milking you can feed that but if you dont have any other milk you will have to get a lamb milk powder.
I would try and make sure they all get some of mums colostrum though throughout the day either direct from mum or milk some off her and give them it from a bottle
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I would take off all four,milk her out twice a day and then feed the milk back to the kids. If you don't have 8 litres of goatsmilk (they should get about 2ltrs per day for quite a while) - either from your nanny or any other goats you have got, buy Lamlac and make it up slightly more diluted than it says on the tin. Then mix the two together until you have the total amount needed for your kids. They should ideally get 4 feeds a day, after two weeks you can introduce some hay, and a bit later some creep - either calf or lamb.
Obviously leave them on for the first 24 hours, making sure they get enough colostrum each. If you aren't sure they get (and you have some anyway) I would give an additional portion of artificial stuff. If mum is standing well just milk her out and bottle feed the colostrum to the kids, that way you know how much they get each. Kids are much easier to transfer from mum to the bottle, compared to lambs anyway...