# Questions for dam-raising and bottle-raising



## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

First the dam-raising question, for those of you who do this. Do you separate your doe kids you are planning to keep and wean them, or just let the dam wean the kid? I had one that I dam-raised, and we tried to separate her several times, sometimes for a couple months even, and each time she would go back to nursing when put back with mom. If you wean by separating, how long before you are able to put the doe kids back with the adults?

Now bottle-raising, for those who do this. Do you all just let the kids have as much milk as they want each feeding, several times a day, or do you limit the amount of milk per kid? Last year, I mostly let them eat as much as they wanted, but as they got older, I started limiting them because they seemed to have an insatiable hunger for milk, and I wanted them to be a little hungry for their hay and grain. For my kids, until they were a month or more, they would usually start slowing down their consumption when they were getting full, and I took the bottles away at that point...but after that age, they would just always want more no matter how full their poor little tummies were, so I only gave them so much at a time.


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

I don't dam-raise and I've only had two kiddings under my belt. But with my limited experience, I've fed the bottle kids as much as they want. I start out at 4x/day then drop to 3x/day for a couple of months. When they don't seem too interested in one of the feedings, I drop to 2x/day. They're on that until they don't seem interested, then to 1x/day. That 1x/day feeding doesn't seem to last too long before they are off it altogether. So they are weaning themselves, by about 4 months. 

When do you offer grain and hay? I offer grain at a couple of days old and hay at about two weeks. They are eating grain and hay pretty well by 3 months of age.


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## Tim Pruitt (Oct 26, 2007)

I think we as an industry need to teach people how to dam raise as dairy goats are so labor intensive for most families. 

No one should ever attempt to dam raise unless they know the CAE status of their herd and really they should have more than several years of CAE negative test before thinking of doing so. 

While dam raising can be successful, there are a few problems with dam raising that I have found that you have to work around. First some does will hold up their milk for their kids or they will kick or move around to keep you from milking her. (I have found overall the does do not behave as well on the milk stand.) Second, if the doe is sick or gets mastitis and you have to treat her, then the kid may not be able to nurse her. Third, some does will stop milking when it is weaning time. Not only will they kick off their kid but they will refuse to come in the barn for you to milk them as they have decided to wean you too.

Giving the kid a bottle of its mother's milk each morning will help keep the kid gentle as well as have an alternate way to feed it in case of illness of its dam or the need to sell her or the kid. To have gentle kids, you will need to handle them daily. In my experience, kids left on the dams without daily exposure to human touch will become wild - I don't care how many years of genetic selection you have done for gentleness. 
Also a careful eye must be kept on the udder to ensure that both are being sucked equally. Kids will favor one side and leave it strutted. Taping the favored side and forcing them to nurse the unfavored side can remedy this problem. 

There are advantages: In emergency situations that arise when you are late for chores or have to be away, (and it does happen) the kids are being fed by their dams and the dams are being relieved in most cases. The kids will grow well but will have to be given parasite treatments as necessary with a careful eye for prevention of coccidia just like bottle raised kids. The kids also quickly learn to eat hay and grain by watching their mothers.


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

Nancy, for dam raising, I wean doelings at breeding time. Bucklings are weaned at three months, hopefully when they are sold so I don't have to listened to the hollering. Since I only need milk for my family, I prefer to share the milk with the doelings. I only had one ND doeling who kept nursing through breeding (I happened to have her and mama with the same buck). She weaned when pregnancy made getting down to nurse too cumbersome!

I bought a dam raised doe (several years old and never milked before) that did what Tim described - would not let me have her milk. She was reformed though :twisted. Though I do question that she really ever let me have it all at milking. I've heard of people not milking ff. That will not turn out well if you are dam raising. They need to know they will be milked.

You do have to monitor the kids' growth, especially with multiples. More often than not it is the doeling that gets pushed out of the way. I had one family last year - I had to leave the doeling with mom all day, while separating the buckling, that way the doeling got enough.

For bottle-feeding I let them have their fill up until they are drinking 20-24oz twice a day (remember I have minis). They sit at that for several weeks then I wean them slowly, so they are off milk at 3 months. Then they must be feed well to maintain growth.


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## Sans Gene Goats (May 15, 2011)

I agree with Tim - please do your testing and make sure your does are CAE negative if you are going to dam-raise. 

I also only have a couple of kidding seasons under my belt, but glad to share my experience with dam-raising. I start separating kids from mom for a few hours a day at age 2 weeks (and start milking the dam 1x day then), and overnight by 4 weeks. By this time, mine are eating hay and the grain mix I make for them (which includes calf manna) well. By 8 weeks mom is starting to kick them off a lot of the time, and which is when I wean them. So far my kids have been very growthy and healthy. We do not routinely use coccidiastats or wormers, but fecal count often and utilize other management options (mixed grazing, moving pens annually), and treat if needed. I mention this because I've noticed a number of folks who do use coccidiastats as part of their management mix them in the milk, so getting those meds into kids could be a big consideration if you aren't going to bottle feed. I can tell you, too, I have noticed bottle-fed goats are waaay better about a syringe of something yucky coming at them then the 100% dam raised! 

After weaning, I keep separated completely from the dam for 3 months and that so far has worked. 

I haven't had enough does to really assess how dam-raising affects their milkstand behavior - too many of my own novice mistakes that factor in lol. Once my adult does and I "worked out our differences", they have been fine. I do, however, put all the doelings up on the milkstand regularly and "pretend milk" to get them used to the idea. 

I make it a point to spend at least 15 minutes a day (usually more) in the pen with mom and babies, just hanging out with them, loving on them and playing with them - one of the best parts of my day. So far this has worked great and my kids seem to be equally as friendly and tame as the bottle-raised kids I've met or bought. 

This year I would like to try some bottle feeding as I would like to start separating kids overnight at a younger age, in case a kid couldn't nurse the dam as Tim mentioned, and if I have kids needing a bit longer before being weaned from milk completely.


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## tlcnubians (Jan 21, 2011)

I agree with Tim on many points, but would like to emphasize that if you do not work with dam-raised kids daily, you'll end up with a bunch of heathens that will make life difficult for you and/or whoever you might sell them to. At least with Nubians and Nubian-Boer crosses (I can't speak for other breeds). Our last dam-raised Nubian doe, Juliet, died last year, and Tom and I swore we would never dam raise another one the first time we spent half an hour "encouraging" her to go into an area where we could catch her. Once she kidded for the first time she learned how to come in with the milking does and was a joy to milk, and I even showed her for several years. As long as she was in a small pen, she was fine, but walk out into the pasture and she'd raise an eyebrow at you and head in the opposite direction. 

Regarding how often/how long to feed milk to bottle-raised kids, you'll find as many differing opinions as there are people raising goats. What works for us is to start the kids on a lamb-bar as soon as they're able to stand and nurse on a bottle without too much encouragement. For most, this is within a day or so of being born. And this changes as the year goes on because the first ones born each year receive a lot more lap time with individual bottles than do those who are born towards the end of kidding season;-) Once the kids are trained to a lamb-bar, we fill it up with cold milk (and frozen water bottles to keep it cold) twice a day (five gallon bucket, 10 nipples). By the time they're 4-6 weeks old they drain the bucket as soon as it's put out, but in the beginning they can nurse a little at a time throughout the day without emptying the bucket all at once. At 8 weeks old they're down to one bucket a day and at 12 weeks old they're weaned. We put out a bucket of water for them when they're about two weeks old and begin introducing medicated goat pellets and hay to them between 3-4 weeks of age. People who purchase kids from us always comment on how friendly our kids are, which tells me that even though I work away from home and Tom does most of the day-to-day goatkeeping, the kids are "imprinted" with humans and think of them as members of their herd. Caroline


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## Sans Gene Goats (May 15, 2011)

Caroline, I think you are right on the mark with the importance of working with dam-raised kids daily. 

After I read your post I realized that while I set aside a minimum of 15 minutes of time to do this, in reality, they get some handling several times a day. How you handle them makes a difference too. We make sure to pick them up or hold them on our laps every day, and if they squirm, gently hang on until they are calm and relaxed before letting them loose. This is especially important if they tend to be skittish. Before long, they are all mugging any human that comes in the pen.


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## adillenal (Feb 6, 2009)

I second Caroline. I got rid of all of my dam, raised does regardless of their quality year before last. I bought a finshed permanent champion Alpine , LA 90 this year and her kid. The breeder forgot to tell me the kid was dam raised and was wild as a March hare. I hate that kid. I was not expecting that since she shows and her show animals are gentle as lambs. 
I have no time to play with dam rasied animals to make them tame. I can bottle feed quickly and easily so that is my way for the rest of my goat raising days.


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## Qvrfullmidwife (Oct 25, 2007)

We have done partial dam raising 3 out of the past 7 years. You can raise dam-raised kids to be workable--but it takes almost as many hours with the kids as the dams spend with them--at our place we encourage lots of handling and human contact of the kids by our two-legged kids. 

also be aware that you need too know of ALL of your does are CAE negative as the kids are not always discriminating as to who they are nursing from and many does will let them. We generally do not dam raise but the times that we have, we have had one or two does who will steal any baby that they can.


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

> also be aware that you need too know of ALL of your does are CAE negative as the kids are not always discriminating as to who they are nursing from and many does will let them. We generally do not dam raise but the times that we have, we have had one or two does who will steal any baby that they can.


Very true. I remember last year Penny's doelings would nurse off of Baby (Penny's daughter). It was quite hilarious. Baby isn't always the sharpest tack in the drawer. She had just one kid, Mayflower. What was funny was when mayflower would start to nurse, sometimes abigail or Savanna would try and sneak in. If she didn't see them, she wouldn't notice. That's when I decided she coudln't count because obviously she could feel two kids were nursing. She started to catch on and would turn her head aroudn real fast and smell them and if she smelled her kid she was A OK, but if she smelled one of her sisters she made this face like she had smelled a rotten egg and ran off lol!


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