The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: Bumblebear on October 28, 2012, 07:57:57 pm

Title: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: Bumblebear on October 28, 2012, 07:57:57 pm
Hello all.  I have been reading about kids and bottle feeding.  May I ask what are the benefits to bottle feeding rather than milking in the morning (after separating kids overnight).  As my little darlings don't appear to be coming into season yet, it may be an irrelevant question anyway!
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: jaykay on October 28, 2012, 08:01:56 pm
I suppose you can start milking earlier. And there's something to do with CAE which someone else can tell you about cos it's not an issue with Old English's, so I don't know about it.

Personally I do as you do, once they're about 3 months old, and much prefer raising goat kids this way and can't help thinking it's healthier all round.
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: kja on October 28, 2012, 08:24:47 pm
it depends on what you want from your goats. mum shows so the kids are taken from the goat at about 7 - 10 days this enables her to see just what each kid is getting and what the milker is producing.

not sure what jk means about cae the goats are usually tested just before kidding and if there was a problem the kids could be taken away at birth and bottle fed.

do what ever suit you and your life style.
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: jaykay on October 28, 2012, 08:32:06 pm
Quote
not sure what jk means about cae the goats are usually tested just before kidding and if there was a problem the kids could be taken away at birth and bottle fed.
that was it, I just had a vague something in the back of my head.
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: kja on October 28, 2012, 08:34:53 pm
Quote
not sure what jk means about cae the goats are usually tested just before kidding and if there was a problem the kids could be taken away at birth and bottle fed.
that was it, I just had a vague something in the back of my head.

i have alot of vague at the the back of my head or is that a void  :roflanim:
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: jaykay on October 28, 2012, 08:37:41 pm
Ha, you and me both  :D
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: Anke on October 28, 2012, 08:46:13 pm
If you want (or need) to maximise themilk yield from your goats you need to milk them out twice a day, and feed the kids by bottle. Advantages are tthat the nanny doesn't reduce her milk yield according to the reduced amounts a kid will take, so should have higher milk yield for longer and also you know how much the kids are getting. Most goat keepers will feed about 2ltrs per day in 4 or 5 feeds for the first few weeks - if the nanny had triplets it may be that you don't actually get 6 ltrs from mum! It is also kinder to the udder to hand milk - one of my BT girls still has a lump in her udder just above the teat where her first kid was really rough.  Less chances of orf coming/going from teat to kid's mouth too. Kids are also very tame from the start. Much easier to spot mastitis, due to twice a day handling of udder.
Disadvantages are milking twice a day, bottle washing. Possibly higher chance of infection if anything isn't too clean, not sure if higher chances of cocci too.
I milk and bottle feed the kids, as I show my goats and also want to use extra milk for lambs/pigs (and the house of course). I also have two-legged kids that help with botttle feeding and milking.
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: Carl f k on October 28, 2012, 09:26:48 pm
Would you bottle feed morning and evening and how much do the kids have?
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: ballingall on October 28, 2012, 09:36:21 pm
It is exactly as Anke says. We breed our goats for showing as well, and by taking away the kids, you are monitoring exactly how much mum is giving, and how much the kids are drinking. It is harder work, because there is more for you to do, 4 feeds a day, bottle washing, milking, washing up milk buckets etc. But you would be surprised how much it improves your husbandry. It's not just early signs of mastitis that you can pick up, but any illness in the mums can be reflected in the mums milk production. You can pick up ill health in the kids too, as then you notice straight away if a kid doesn't want it's bottle, or if it only drinks a little bit.


Kids can decide they have a preference for one side of the udder too, and you might end with a lopsided udder in the goat, which for showing isn't good either.


Also, bear in mind, not all goats are naturally great mothers. Some of them don't even like their kids when the kids are born.


Personally, we take the kids away virtually straight away birth. We hand milk, and the first feed the kids get is from us out of a bottle- so they look to us for food.
Generally it will only ever be four feeds a day, sometimes on their first day, if they are born at an odd time they will get an extra feed, but after that 4 feeds a day only. To give them more feeds a day only makes more work for you, and means that the kids will start to learn to take more milk at a feed as they will be hungrier.
Once our kids are roughly a fortnight old, we teach them to drink from an old saucepan, and they go down to 3 feeds a day, but they can drink more out of a pan.


Beth
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: ballingall on October 28, 2012, 09:40:06 pm
Would you bottle feed morning and evening and how much do the kids have?


When the kids are little bottle feed 4 times a day. Early morning, lunchtime, late afternoon/5pm, and last thing.


Once they get a bit bigger and take more milk at once, you can drop them down to 3 feeds a day. I think if you were bottling them only you would wait until they were 4-6 weeks old before dropping to 3 feeds.


We drop to 3 feeds early, but that's because we go onto a saucepan!


The worse thing is if you have newborn kids, who are on 4 feeds a day, and some 6week old kids who are on 3 feeds a day, because then you end up having 7 feeding sessions a day, and you feel like its never ending!


Beth
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: Anke on October 28, 2012, 09:44:56 pm
Would you bottle feed morning and evening and how much do the kids have?
In the first couple of weeks it is usually 5 -6 x per day (but none in the night!) and I start with half a bottle and see how much they take in about 10mins. GG's are quite slow, BT's just guzzle...
Then slowly increase amount per feed and once it gets close to a full bottle I switch to 4 x a day.
Once they take one bottle ( about 500ml) in one go its 4 feeds a day - I do 6.30am, 12noon, 5pm and 10pm. PLus they also get goat mix, oats and maybe a few dairy nuts twice a day. When they start to get weaned I "forget" the mid-day feed first, then the late night one. Reason for that is that my human kids like to help feeding, so I do the ones they are able to help with the longest. I normally wean my kids bewteen 5 and 6 months old, but you can do it earlier. Some kids self wean, and refuse the bottle at some point.
I can do this as I am working on the holding, so am available. I know of people that are working away from home and they do three feeds per day - one early morning, one as soon as they get home in the afternoon and one late at night, probably still 2 ltrs per day though. Or you have to leave them on mum during the day, strip the nanny out in the evening after the kid(s) have been shut away and milk some more out in the morning before returning the kids to her. To keep milk yield up goats should be stripped empty once a day minimum.
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: Carl f k on October 28, 2012, 09:50:11 pm
Beth and Anke, very informative thank you, not sure it would work for me working 9 till 5 and Heidi on shifts
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: Bumblebear on October 28, 2012, 10:13:09 pm
Very useful.  I'm thinking I might bottle feed any girls and leave the boys, easier for when the time comes.  Are yours in season yet?  One of mine has a billy collar on but not other than a bit of tail wagging yesterday.....
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: Carl f k on October 28, 2012, 10:16:58 pm
I'm still goat less at the moment.. Want to get all the knowledge I can before I get them :goat:
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: Lesley Silvester on October 28, 2012, 11:11:46 pm
I leave my kids with their mums all the time but start milking after the first week.  I don't get a huge amount but it helps the yield increase.  I also let them decide for themselves when they are weaned which varies from kid to kid even though they have access to feed and hay from the start as my goats are all in together.  I believe this is far more natural for them and I'm not worried about lumpy or lopsided udders as I don't show.
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: plumseverywhere on October 29, 2012, 08:29:45 am
I've left Sixpence on his mum this year because my other goat came into milk (again) without being asked to and with my hectic lifestyle I didn't want to juggle milking two goats (plus I dno't have storage for that much milk!)
I did milk Mum a couple of times just to see how she'd be (she was fine) and also until he got used to taking milk from both sides of the udder but they've been fine and he's finally weaning off now.
It depends solely on your own personal needs really and also how well mum is adapting to having kids - sometimes you have no choice in the matter!
Title: Re: Bottle feeding v leaving kids with mum
Post by: sokel on October 29, 2012, 06:54:32 pm
We prefer to bottle the kids as they get bigger because
A: it builds a great bond up between us and the kids
B: Several times before we started bottling we had nannies with pink milk after the kids got to rough when feeding