The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: Dogwalker on May 26, 2014, 10:27:25 pm
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What age do you wean kids from dairy goats. They're about 7 weeks and separated at night for the last week, taking some hard feed but not enough yet.
Possibly selling a couple of kids off mum, I've only sold them older before.
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I leave mine together to decide for themselves. They've usually stopped bothering to suckle by about six months.
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i've got twin girls, about 6 weeks old whose mum decides when they feed, she shouts when its teatime and they come running but the rest of the day she's miles away grazing and they stay close to the shed and cause havoc so anyway the point I'm trying to make is that the way they are going they will be weaned in a few weeks. Just keep an eye on how often they feed off mum, how much water they drink etc and are they grazing.
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Depends what you want the kids for. If you want them to grow into good strong dairy goats I would keep them on milk until 6 months or so, but if you sell them off for meat maybe earlier is ok.
All of mine (incl boys for meat, 100% dairy breeds) stay on milk until 6 - 7 months.
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These are dairy x and will be for meat but someone might want some as pets.
Normally I'd leave them till about September.
thanks always interesting to hear what others do.