The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: mojocafa on April 28, 2014, 11:54:07 am

Title: How do i prepare Kids for leaving
Post by: mojocafa on April 28, 2014, 11:54:07 am

I have kids leaving at the weekend, what should I do in order to prepare both mum and kid for separation?
Kids are varying ages between 10 - 13 weeks. Yesterday I separated the kids for about 6 hrs and after the initial 30 mins or so of wailing everyone settled down but when I reintroduced, they all sneaked under mum for a suckle.  Thoughts and advice please,

Cheers in advance
Mojo

Title: Re: How do i prepare Kids for leaving
Post by: jinglejoys on April 28, 2014, 04:20:39 pm

I always separate them at night anyway so they are used to it. Of coarse they will suckle from mum as soon as you put them back with her (free milk) if they are leaving anyway they can't suckle from her.

Title: Re: How do i prepare Kids for leaving
Post by: Thrift Bee on April 28, 2014, 09:47:19 pm

Mojo, I logged on to ask the same question.

Our kids are away in another couple of weeks and I have been separating them at night so they can't suckle. They can see Mum through the fence though.

Not sure how to tackle Mum's milk production.

Sorry i cant help.

Title: Re: How do i prepare Kids for leaving
Post by: mojocafa on April 28, 2014, 10:10:24 pm

From tomorrow, I will seperate at night, cheers

Title: Re: How do i prepare Kids for leaving
Post by: Thrift Bee on April 28, 2014, 10:27:27 pm

The other thing i have done is reduced the amount of dairy nuts Mum is getting so she hopefully reduces her milk production.

Title: Re: How do i prepare Kids for leaving
Post by: cuckoo on April 28, 2014, 11:45:43 pm

I would seperate and keep apart.  I always wean my kids and keep them for a couple of weeks due to weaning stress before they get sold. If you want to dry the doe of reduce concentrates and increase forage.

Title: Re: How do i prepare Kids for leaving
Post by: HappyHippy on April 29, 2014, 12:02:30 am

I've only done it once, but I kept the kids completely separate from mum (a Golden Guernsey) they were her first kids and she'd not really been handled much at all before we got her (already with 2 kids at foot) so she was very skittish to try and work with - I'd already decided I wasn't going to milk her but did need to ensure she dried up without mastitis  :thumbsup:

We cut back the hard feeding to just a handful morning and night and I milked her just enough to relieve the pressure in her udder 'til she dried up - it only took about 5 days altogether. If you want to milk her all you'd need to do would be keep on with the feeding and milk morning and night. There's another good thread on difficult milker on the board if you need it  ;)

Good luck & HTH

Title: Re: How do i prepare Kids for leaving
Post by: Penninehillbilly on April 29, 2014, 06:25:46 pm

Just one other thing, on the day take mum out to the field and remove kid while she's out, she's less likely to get stressed about it if she doesn't see her baby disappearing.
Did read that somewhere so always done it that way.