I like the idea of "Dam Raising" and have been doing that, but could use some advice on two things.

1. I have a doe that kidded in late April. I let the kids nurse for six weeks thinking I would then wean them and start milking her. At six weeks it became a battle seperating them. Being nubians, they cried like they were being tortured. They never did wean and she has not weaned them.

After a while their horns grew and I had to have them surgically removed (the horn buds had been clipped at an early age, but still grew back). Since having their horns removed I have left them with their mother, because I felt they were already stressed enough. They still nurse and I still milk her twice daily. But I hardly get anything out of her.

She had been bred about 2 years ago and I let the kids nurse until they were 6 weeks old, then sold them and started milking her twice daily. She was a plentiful milker then, but I only milked her a few months before drying her up as I was going away on vacation for two weeks and didn't have anyone to milk her for me.

The problem is now is I am unsure if she is just drying up naturally, or if the kids are taking so much out of her, I get nothing. I have seperated her a few times, but even then she doesn't seem to give as much as the first time she freshened. I don't know if that is because I only waited about 8 hours to milk her after seperating her instead of a full 12 hours. 2. The kids are not so tame. I have neglected spending much time with them and wonder how I can tame them down more, because I do intend to breed them. I have tried raisins and bread, but they just aren't interested in these treats.

I appreciate any advice.

-- R. (thor610@yahoo.com), November 16, 2000

Answers

R., I don't know how big your property is, but the best thing to do would be to get the kids as far from the doe as possible and suffer through the crying. The problem is, that having been allowed to nurse for so long, even if you re-unite them in a few weeks, the kids may start nursing again. Even if they have to wait till next year when mom is freshened again, they may still start back up. If I was in your place, I would bite the bullet, sell this batch of kids, and bottle feed the next batch. The only way you are going to tame these kids is to spend time with them, away from their mother, and it sounds like that may be difficult if you have other demands on your time. These two problems are why we never did dam raise our kids, and I doubt that I would in the future. It is more convenient to be able to leave the mother for a little bit and not have to worry about milking her, but there is a price.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), November 16, 2000.

One thing that I have learned in raising Nubians....If you want to have the milk, seperate the kids at birth!! I have never been successful at milking the doe and having her kids nurse at the same time. I have been successful in leaving ONE kid on her, and still being able to milk her. This may be your answer for the next time. I take the kids, and feed them her milk after I milk.

As for taming the "momma's kids" now, you have to separate them totally away from mom. Totally!! Where they can no longer see her, and if possible, not hear each other. Then, spend a lot of time with them. When they figure out that you are their main source of food, you will become their friend.

Good luck, and Blessings, Sissy

-- sissy sylvester-barth (jerreleene@hotmail.com), November 16, 2000.

Hi R, I dam raise all our kids and get milk, and our kids are tame enough that I can pet them anytime I want to. Here is how I do it. When the doe kids,I let the kids nurse right away, squirting the teats once if necessary to get the plug out. 12 to 18 hours later, I milk the doe, but I don't strip her all the way out, in case the kids haven't eaten yet. Or, you can put the kids on her right before milking her to make sure they get their fill, and then milk her out. This will be colostrum. If you have several goats, you can freeze it in case you will need it at a later time, or you can use it for pancake batter. For the next week or two, milk the doe twice a day, 12 hours apart, giving her grain at each feeding, and letting the kids get all they want beforehand. Soon they will get the hang of it and hurry to nurse before you milk. When they get to be a couple weeks old, milk her out as thoroughly as you can. By now they are big enough that they can get the milk and you don't have to worry about depriving them. If there are triplets, I like to sell one off as soon as it has a good start, about a week old. between a month and 6 weeks, sell off all the buck kids, or butcher them. Then you will get more milk, and the nice does that you really want to keep will grow well. About this time, you can also start seperating the kids from the dam overnight. They will be quieter because it is dark. Let them out in the morning after milking.To tame down the kids, let them into the milking area every evening or twice a day,when their mother comes in. Each kid comes in with it's own mother. Let them share their mother's grain. When they get a good appetite for grain, put a small dish for the kid in the milking area with a lead rope tied near the dish. When the kid is eating from it's dish, snap it up while eating. Make this a daily routine. In any spare time while I am not milking but the does aren't done eating yet, I pet and talk to the kids and handle them all over.When they're done eating lead them out. When the doe gets bred in the fall, she will wean the kids herself, often within days of being bred, because her teats get tender from the hormonal changes. I keep feeding the kids all along because I breed them as 95 -100 lb kids and want them to keep growing.

Now, how to tame a kid that is already wild. Do they have an appetite for grain? If they do, it should be easy. Get the kid to come into a pen where there is a pan of grain. If you are very patient, you can let it eat the grain and then leave. I catch them and clip them up while they eat the grain out of my hand. This way they understand that the grain is a treat from me, and associate my presence with the treat. After it will eat out of my hand with confidence, I start reaching out my hand and touching it very slowly while it eats. Usually they will start and back off, but then come back and eat again. If you are gentle and persistent, they will soon let you walk right up to them and lead them around, and pet them. After they kid, they usually get even friendlier. They will be tamer if you can start handling them at birth though. It doesn't take a lot of time, just a minute or two at each milking. I have a dam raised kid that always wants to jump into my lap and nibble my hair! She is not even slightly wild or afraid of me, because I have been doting on her since her birth.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), November 16, 2000.

First get someone to teach you how to disbud so you don't have to stress your does with dehorning later on.

I have always bottle raised my kids though I have been toying with the idea of dam raising everyone this year, with some intervention. I have raised bucks like this in the past. Let the kids nurse and stay with Mom for about 24 hours, during this time the doe goes through her normal milking every 12 hours, to save extra colostrum (a big seller for me). At 24 hours the kids are put into a kid pen and twice a day are brought to their mom on the milk stand to nurse. By about 3 weeks the kids run from the pen to the milk room and jump up on the milk stand to nurse, the nice part of this system is that if you sell the kids dam, all does are used to being nursed like this, and none of the kids really know who their dam is and will milk out any udders that need empting. Put the kids up, empty udders, teat dip and you don't have lopsided udders from 1 kid nursing 1 side and you milking the other. (For us very important since we show) These little bucks (and maybe does this year) are great for udder emptiers on your first freshened does with their smaller teats, and since the kids have been handled since birth, and you are taking them to and from their food they are nearly as friendly as bottle babies. When you do need milk for the house, simply milk the does before you let the kids out. You also control the weaning and not the dams, and since I won't be selling milk anymore, will be able to keep these kids nursing as long as they want to. We start kidding in 4 weeks, so I had better make up my mind!

You are going to have to seperate the kids from their mom to tame them down, or sell them. Even seperating them from each other also may do the trick, since then they would have only you! How about paying some nice 4H kids in your area to take these two wild kids, children are the best tamers there are since they are relentless! Give them the kids, feed and hay, and say 50$ for their time for the next 3 months or so, that should do the trick, especially if they both went to different homes! Wild goats don't stay here very long, and with the decrease in the sale price of a wild goat no matter what her pedigree is, it is hardly worth it to dam raise. I have always told myself that the 12 weeks worth of work it takes to get a kid from birth to weaning, tame is worth it over the life time of the doe, and who wants a rodeo to just trim feet or milk! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), November 16, 2000.

I now raise almost all kids on their mother.Here's the way I do it. Allow the kids to nurse their fill of colostrum for the first couple of days.Seperate the kids from the mother at night.Milk for the family each morning then allow the kids to run with mom all day.Be sure the kids have a box in the main barn so mom can check on them from time to time.Doing it this way,we have no problem with crying and the kids are tame from the daily handling. In the past we bottle fed as a CAE preventive.Wast of time.Clean up the herd then close it.The only bottle babies now are when we have triplets or quads.

-- JT Sessions (ltlfarm@aol.com), November 16, 2000.

WE do the same thing J.T. does, except my dh wanted to wait more than a couple of days to start milking, to make sure the kids get a good start, the kids did cry a lot at first when we separated them at night and when we go milk in the a.m. but they get used to it after a while I had one smart doe (who is also an escape artist when she wants to be) open the pen we had the babies in the first night or two till we caught her in the act and wired the pen gate shut. She has quit getting out since kidding. Ours are all pretty tame but we have children who play with them and we do ourselves.

-- Carol in Tx (cwaldrop@peoplescom.net), November 16, 2000.

To stop a kid from nursing, I put surgical tape on the end of the does teat. I remove it and put on fresh tape at every milking. Instead of wraping it around the does teat (it restricts the teat as it fills with milk throughout the day) I put it on the other way, down and over the end of the teat and up the other side. Works great.

-- Julie (julieamc@excite.com), November 16, 2000.

Hi! I raise my kids on the doe and do it this way. For the first two weeks, I let the kids in with me while I milk her twice a day - I only get out a little but it's OK. I freeze the colostrum that I get out the first 3 days for possible orphaned kids. At this point, if I separate them, she'll get upset and not let down. Sometimes I even put a kid on one teat and milk the other (then switch) if it's the doe's first kidding. By three weeks she's not upset by having them shut in the other room when she's milked; she kind of likes to get away from them. At six to eight weeks I butcher the males out. First time I did that, she went from giving a pint a day to 3 quarts, so they were getting an awful lot. if I'm keeping one, I'll separate her out about then, and put up with the screams. BTW, my nicest doe is one I got practically wild, and she tamed right down after giving birth, well sort of. I had to fight with her for the first two weeks to get her into the stanchion to milk, but then she settled right down and is quite nice and tame now. So they will get better once they have babies.

Raven

-- Raven Kaldera (cauldronfarm@hotmail.com), November 17, 2000.