Hi all, Can you all share your weaning practices for bottle fed dairy kids? I hae 3 six week old does and one buck. Can I wean him completely? They are all eating lots of grain. He is down to 1 20oz bottle but they are still getting 2. All info appreciated. Cindy

-- Cindy (ourfamilyfarm@email.msn.com), March 14, 2001

Answers

I wean at 12 weeks. To grow to their potential they really need all the extra calories and calcium that milk gives them. For the really big, large framed bucks, that you would be proud to call your herdsire, are on bottles for quite sometime. My kids are 10 weeks old right now, they get the lambar full of milk 2 times a day now, evening they get all the extra milk left all they want to drink, and they are all eating 1 pound of grain a day, getting ready for weaning in 2 weeks. The does will be off at 12 weeks cold turkey, the bucks will continue to have all the milk they will drink for as long as they will take it. Now if you are feeding milk replacer, they are probably better off being weaned just as soon as they are consuming enough hay and grain. When we sold milk we rationed the milk to our kids, 3 16 ounce bottles a day period. And of course no bucks were raised except something I was keeping for myself. If you aren't keeping this buck than use the extra milk for the doe kids! But now with milk that's free, I certainly want them drinking it and not eating as much as the $GRAIN$!! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 14, 2001.

Why do you wean the does at 12 weeks and let the bucks continue? The one buck is a nubian/saanen cross and I will not be keeping him. They are getting goat's milk.

-- Cindy (ourfamilyfarm@email.msn.com), March 14, 2001.

Very simply when you are competeing for folks to use your bucks and in the show ring the bucks are weighing upwards of 250 to 300 pounds, not an ounce of jiggle. You simply are not going to get size like that without huge bone developement. You want the does to quickly develope their rumens and does kept on to much milk for to long can quickly be spotted for their long torpedo looking bodies. We want them to be long, angular with huge barrels. My now deceased senior buck Eric, who was put down right before he turned 10, was still on the lambar when he was breeding his first does at 8 months. Heath was 2 the first of March and is 235 pounds, 17 more pounds than my 6 year old Essential who I didn't raise (yep JT, one whole weigh tape plus 4 or 5 more inches :) actually he was just weighed at the vet for his CAE test for the year), his full sister is a beautiful doe who is 145 pounds. Big difference. Just how I do things. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 14, 2001.

Vicki,glad to hear that you have some good medium sized bucks.I have this mental picture of you holding some skinny goats up by their ears and pouring antibiotics down their throats from a 5 gallon bucket.:>) And for Cindy....Vicki's advice to keep the kids on milk for 12 weeks or more is right on target.I would have said the same for replacer as well.

-- JT (gone2seed@hotmail.com), March 14, 2001.

And one other thing concerning size.Buttercup,the big one,lost about 40 pounds three nights ago.She gave us quads.Three does and a buck.Just for the record,I hate quads.I would much rather the doe had twins.Much easier on both of us.

-- JT (gone2seed@hotmail.com), March 14, 2001.

Hi,

I basically use the same process as Vickie does in weaning, except for one difference.... i wean later than 12 weeks. i let the kids nurse for about 4-5 months. this process has worked for us and i figure it works so i don't change it. But it sounds from what you said how they are eating grain they could be weaned. i do bottle feed some too and wean at the same time as our others. Hope this helps.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), March 14, 2001.

We bottle feed show does and bucks for a full twelve weeks. Wethers or does that are not show quality are weaned at eight weeks. We cut them back to one bottle a day for several days and then nothing. Sometimes we will give them a bottle of warm water once a day to make sure they don't get dehydrated and to make them feel like they are getting something good. Our feeding regemine is pretty invloved for the first six weeks. Every four hours for the first three to four days; every six hours for the following two to three weeks; and then twice daily until weaned.

Good feeding means large healthy kids.

-- Skip Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), March 14, 2001.

The kids really need the milk in their tummys for a long time, much longer than 6 weeks. If you take it away, and don't feed some sort of milk replacer product, their tummys don't have the good stuff in there to stay healthy. I would feed them milk for as long as you can. The kids I bought a couple years ago at 6 weeks didn't do as good as the ones that were still on the does, and 1 just would not take a bottle. Single kids on does grow so much faster and bigger than twins too, more milk. I would give them as much as you can spare.

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@hotmail.com), March 15, 2001.