Goat-Info.com
Disclaimer : I am not a vet. Although I may suggest medications, dosages,
and treatments for animals, you should always have a vet, use a vet, and
consult a vet.
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This is in my opinion the
most important part of a kids life. From growth rate to correctness of
feet and legs are determined by the feeding regimen you practice with your
babies. I have seen so many adult goats out there (a few I have bought)
that have the genetics but not the correctness of feet and legs needed to
walk into a show ring. Most of the time the lack of correctness is due to
improper feeding and/or cocci during the 0-6 mo time period. The
following is the regimen we have developed over the years and seems to
work really well for us.
1) Pull your babies from the dam @ 24 hrs.
We do this for a couple of reasons, first of all you don't have to
milk the thick, sticky, and nasty colostrum. Second, they take to the
bottle much quicker.
2) We allow the babies to eat until they are full. As time goes on
they will take more and more, you have to be careful not to let them take
too much more at one time to keep them from bloating.
3) If we don't have enough goats milk to go around we have found two
options that work well. One is cows milk with about a tsp of corn
syrup/10oz. this keeps them from becoming constipated. Second, is a milk
replacer made by ADM (NurseTrate Platinum DC product # 34813AZW14)
we have had excellent results with this milk replacer with no scouring
like you get from 99% of milk replacers.
4) We wean our babies at 8+ wks old. Of course this varies with each
goat but most of them are @ 8 wks.
5) After weaning, creep feeding with a good medicated pellet is a must.
These little guys need all the nutrition that they can get during this
critical time. Free choice feed, hay, and loose minerals are in order.
After 6 mo old we have introduced our Juniors to some of our adults and
they are well on their way to being assimilated into the rest of the herd.
Below are the feeds and minerals we use for our babies. All of these
are ADM products which we have found to be far superior to all the other
feeds we have tried which includes the majority of the goat feeds
available.
-34813 NurseTrate Platinum DC milk replacer
-80869 Goat Power Mineral
-80865 Meat Goat Power 16% |