How do you milk a goat and still feed the kids?
Question by Timmy V: How do you milk a goat and still feed the kids?
I want to bottle feed my baby goats and also milk the Mama. What do I feed the babies? The excess goat milk? Formula? How do I make sure the babies don’t feed off the Mama?
Can you help? Leave your own answer in the comments!
4 Responses to How do you milk a goat and still feed the kids?
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You let the mama feed the babies. Why on earth would you want to go through all that rigmarole to do it otherwise?
The goats aren’t there for your entertainment. The kids are hers, not yours.
Nomadd
October 11, 2011 at 4:24 pm
If you milk a goat for personal use her body will naturally meet the need for her kids too. It will take a couple of days for the milk to adjust and she will probably need extra food.
a human woman can just as easily breastfeed one baby or triplets.. her body meets the need.
MrsMetal
October 11, 2011 at 4:25 pm
well, what we do is at night we keep the kids in a part away from the mama( but not until they are healthy enough to stand up of course) and then in the morning i go out and milk her. during the day i let her feed the kids. BUT if u think they r not getting enough, u can pour some of the milk into a small sprite bottle and get a plastic nipple to put on there(these r VERY hard to get on)and bottle feed them. this will make them more people friendly. the first few times u will have to let them get used to it, and sometimes shove it into their mouth( mainly when the mother will not let the baby nurse.this sometimes happens in twins,the mother prefers the oldest, or the healthier one.)sometimes u must straddle the baby(this sounds ridiculous but it works!)and pry open their mouth and shove the nipple in. DO NOT let them suck after all the milk is gone. i would not advise filling the bottle all the way full. feed the baby twice a day.
Anamarie
October 11, 2011 at 4:41 pm
This is the general approved way that most all serious breeders raise kids and milk. There are other ways and it depends some on how much work you want to do.
Serious breeders always remove the kids from the mother as soon as the kids are born. The kids are then fed heat treated colostrum and then pasteurized milk. This is to prevent the spread of diseases like CAE. To learn more about this you can do a web-search for these terms.
Kids are usually fed 3 or 4 times a day, as much as they want to eat, for the first week and then feed up to a quart of milk per day with two feedings per day until they are about 8 weeks old and then fed but once a day for the following month and then weaned. Some people do keep them on milk longer and some feed more or less milk.
A good dairy goat should have plenty of milk for you to have enough and for her kids but there are a lot of poorer quality milkers out there and you may have to feed some milk replacer. Make sure it’s a good quality replacer made for goats.
Everbely
October 11, 2011 at 4:49 pm