# How Long to Bottle Feed Alpine Kids



## nlhayesp (Apr 19, 2012)

I bought two alpine kids, one born the first of March and the other the first of April. How long are they bottle fed? How do you wean them? They get around 24 oz each two times a day now.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

At least until the youngest is 12 weeks, then cold turkey no more milk. BUT!!!! What are you going to feed them instead of milk? They have to be eating it. It has to replace their high fat milk, their high protein milk, their high calcium milk.....fed sweet feed and grass hay their growth will stall, they will stress and stress brings on cocci and worms. IF you have the milk keep feeding it to them, if you don't, wean.


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## Caprine Beings (Sep 19, 2008)

AND if you want to get a 1 gallon bucket, some aquarium tubing, two lambar nipples, you can make a lambar to feed them both at the same time  this allows you to handle them while they are eating (comes in handy for later). 
As Vicki mentioned, 12 weeks of age and they need to be eating other things as well. Alfalfa/grass hay and some meat goat pellet will keep up on their nutrition. Introduce loose minerals now if you haven't do so. Until they are eating well I would keep them on one lambar a day. Then try taking them off. 
Tam


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

And then there is me, who keeps them on milk until the cold weather comes in and I start getting the milkers in breeding condition. I have the spare milk so I feed it to the doelings as long as I can.


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## nlhayesp (Apr 19, 2012)

The girls are on grass/alfalfa hay, 18% grain with coccistat, loose minerals, and a small pasture with mixed grass/clover as well. I know our doe-raised kids stay on their moms until I force them off at breeding time, sometimes when they are 7 - 8 months old! Our sheep just kick the lambs off at 8 - 12 weeks, so I know the right age to do a bottle lamb. If I were to mimic the does, 7 - 8 months just doesn't sound right!


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## feistymomma (May 20, 2009)

I bottle feed my kids until they are at least 16 weeks old. My doeling right now is 11 weeks old. She gets (2) 24 oz bottles a day and is getting free choice medicated textured goat feed and free choice just baled clover hay. She right now weighs 37 lbs, so I am liking her growth weight. This is also with a tramatic injury to her leg. Since she is working on healing her leg, I will not wean her until she is around 20- 25 weeks, so around 5 months old.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Nancy, that kind of drives me insane  Then we hear "my dam raised kids are always so much bigger than my bottle raised ones". Yep, because your bottle raised kids never get as much milk during a 24 hour period, or for as long, as the dam raised ones do.


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## lonestrchic23 (Jan 7, 2011)

I don't wean my doelings until 16 weeks at the soonest. And I feed a minimum of 2 quarts of milk per kid each day..... The last week or two, I cut them back to one feeding per day. 

Last year I had milk coming out of my ears, so I had 2 bottle kids who got a morning bottle everyday until they were 7 months old 

This year I'm feeding 5 bottle kids & am about to be down to just 2 does milking (thank goodness they're Alpines & can feed the horde!) so I doubt I'll drag these out 7 months..


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

I've never had doelings have much interest after 3 or 4 months. Just my limited experience. Now the bucklings, they could drink forever!


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## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

I only have alpines and they get free-choice milk until they are 8 weeks old. After that they get whatever milk is available. On average, after they are 8 weeks, they each get at least 1/2 gallon of milk per day, and often times there is more to spare so they will get that too. 

Once they are 8+ weeks and eating grain I will give them most of the whey from cheese-making, and any skim milk I have from separating out the cream. I don't use my milk like this every day, but knowing the kids do fine on it if needed, I can do whatever cheese making and cream separating I need to and not buy milk for the kids when I do. 

All the bucks but one have been sold, so we have plenty of milk. If I had to buy milk they would get 1/2 gallon per day until weaning at 4 months old.


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## Oat Bucket Farm (Mar 2, 2009)

We don't normally go past three months. They are eating normal food really well by then and I am sick and tired of bottle feeding by then.


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## Ziggy (Nov 13, 2009)

To add on to Vicki's point i challenge anyone to show me better growth on a dam raised kid as opposed to my free choice fed Lambar raised kids on cocci prevention. I don't have time to weigh and track their growth exactly but the 3 month old Nubian buckling I shipped to Iowa last weekend was over 50 pounds.


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## lonestrchic23 (Jan 7, 2011)

Ziggy said:


> To add on to Vicki's point i challenge anyone to show me better growth on a dam raised kid as opposed to my free choice fed Lambar raised kids on cocci prevention. I don't have time to weigh and track their growth exactly but the 3 month old Nubian buckling I shipped to Iowa last weekend was over 50 pounds.


LOL, my vet raises boers & gave me a hard time about wasting my time bottle feeding only to have smaller kids...... Until I took one of my Alpine bucklings for help fixing a scur (he was too big for me to do alone) & he DWARFED his boer kids who were a week older


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## JamieH (Nov 29, 2010)

This is my first year raising bucklings and they eat so differently! I have an 11 week old who is self weaning even though she is penned with a 6 week old who is still firmly on milk. I kind of let the kids direct things. I had a doeling self wean early last year too.


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

I have one that is sort of fussy with her milk this year. She once in awhile skips a milk meal. I took her and her sister to a show memorial weekend, they were around 11 weeks then too, and she was refusing milk from the lambar bucket I brought, cold like she was used to, warm, whatever. I finally got a pop bottle, and she took warm milk out of that, little snot! She wanted her "momma"!


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

My dam raised kids have always grown the same as my bottle babies. The dam raised doelings do drink milk until breeding season. Going to try to keep it up with my bottle baby this year, but getting kind of sick of dealing with heat treating for her so might end up just minding her feeding more closely.

Well Ziggy, I have a dam raised Mini Nubian buck that is 47 lbs at 11 weeks, so I'd say my growth rates are on par with yours. I'm very pleased with my kids this year. Prevention is going very well.


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## Ziggy (Nov 13, 2009)

That mini can't be too "mini" then . Yes it sounds like you are feeding them well!


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

He is so wide. The ND bucks are definately putting width on their kids. I have a 7 week old mini doeling that is 30 lbs. She wasn't 10 lbs at birth, so she's definitely hitting her 10 lbs plus! I don't know if these first gens will end up taller than the later gen kids. They weren't born big than the others, but they definitely have width.


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