Even though I strongly believe that goat kids should be raised by mom, there are times when that simply is not possible. A doe may have more kids than she can feed. A kid may be born too small or weak to be able to nurse. And on rare occasion, a doe may reject one or more kids. So, if you find yourself with a bottle baby, what do you do?
What do you feed?
Goat milk is best, and I prefer raw milk because it has all of the antibodies intact. However, if the milk comes from a doe that has CAE, Johnes, or another infectious disease, then the milk needs to be pasteurized so that the kid does not get infected.
Beyond that, you’ll hear people argue all day long about what to feed. We’ve used milk replacer, and we’ve used whole milk from the store, and we had equally OK results with both. Without mom’s antibodies in fresh goat milk, the kids will be more likely to have problems with worms and coccidia, which is why some people use medicated milk replacer, which helps prevent coccidiosis.
How much?
All kids should get 5% of their body weight in the first six hours and 10% of their body weight in the first 24 hours in COLOSTRUM. Without colostrum, kids will die. When calculating, remember to convert pounds to ounces. If you have a 3-pound Nigerian dwarf kid, that’s 3 X 16 = 48 ounces, which would be 4.8 ounces of milk in the first 24 hours. It would need to have half that amount in the first six hours, which would be 2.4 ounces. If the kid wants more, that’s fine. This is just the minimum.
How often?
Most people feed 4-5 times in 24 hours, and you can usually go 7-8 hours overnight between bottles, so it’s about every 3-4 hours during the day. Some people try to get kids down to only two bottles as soon as possible, but in my experience, kids are more likely to get diarrhea when given too much milk at a single feeding. We don’t usually get kids down to less than three bottles ever.
How long?
Kids need milk for a minimum of two months. In the early years, we used to bottle feed for three to four months. But since we’ve learned that mama’s milk makes them healthier, and they grow faster, we now bottle feed for five or six months.
Where should bottle babies live?
Of course, it is tempting to keep bottle babies in the house with you. They are so adorable and cuddly! And it’s easier than going out to the barn to give a bottle at night. But having a kid in the house creates so many problems! Sure, it’s cute and fun until the kid is running around and eating your mail and chewing up your extension cords and dancing on top of your CD player. (Yep, really happened.) The worst part, though, is that they don’t know they’re a goat, and eventually you will have to put them outside, and it will be a very sad day as you listen to that kid screaming for hours. So, if they are a normal, healthy kid, I now make them stay with the other goats. If they are weak or having trouble maintaining their body temperature, we will keep them in the house initially, but we move them to the barn with other goats as soon as it’s safe for them.
If we have more than one bottle baby, we will have a bottle baby pen in the kidding barn, so they can all stay together. But if there’s only one, we try to keep it with its mother and siblings, if possible. Because goats are herd animals, they should not be alone, and it’s best for them to realize that other goats are their herd, rather than humans.
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My kid is 6 weeks old and I have to force him to bottle feed. He’d rather graze. Should I keep forcing him to bottle feed?
It is not normal for a kid to not want a bottle, assuming he’s been bottlefed since birth. Over the year, we’ve only ever had three kids that age that were difficult to bottlefeed. Two died. The vets said they had been born with some type of congenital abnormalities that affected their digestive systems. The third was vitamin E deficient and improved after we gave him a daily softgel of vitamin E for a couple of weeks.
If someone just sold you this kid and pulled him off his mother a few days ago, then this is totally understandable, and you really should continue to force him to take the bottle because he really needs the nutrients in milk. If he’s going to be a wether, he might be okay if he quits now because there are not many demands on a wether, but if he’s a buck, it could negatively affect his growth and health long-term if he doesn’t get milk long enough.