When I first started raising goats, all the books I found about it said raising bottle kids was what you should do. So I did.
That left me heating milk, washing bottles and nipples several times a day. My does were unhappy. The kids didn’t care so much as they played together.
Forget the Bottles
I worked full time. Bottle schedules just didn’t happen. I let the kids nurse their mothers. Everyone was happy, except me.
Kids, especially buck kids love milk and will drink as much as they can. That didn’t leave much for my refrigerator. However, the kids looked great and got big fast.
Bottles Can be Necessary
It seems triplets happen every year. Goats have two teats. That third kid gets shoved out and doesn’t get enough to eat. I have a bottle baby.
Some kids are born small. Some are born with problems. Sometimes a mother rejects a kid for her own personal reason. I am left raising bottle kids.
My Method
Since I raise few bottle kids, I have a casual routine. All my kids are bottle kids the first day. It’s often much easier to bottle the colostrum than it is to get a kid on a teat to nurse. Once the kid has had some milk and is up and active, it much easier to show them how to nurse.
If I am raising bottle kids, the kids are not shown how to nurse. If they are active enough, I do leave them out with their mother and siblings. She will often take care of that third kid even though it isn’t nursing her.
If the kid is small or weak, the kid moves into a box in the house. A heating pad wrapped in a plastic bag and old towels is in the bottom for whenever necessary.
The bottles I use are plastic soda bottles. I like them because they don’t break if I drop them and are easily replaced when they won’t clean up well.
The nipple is a black lamb’s nipple. I’ve used the lamb bar nipples and like them, but don’t often find them at the feed store. They are easier to put on the bottles.
Milk or Replacer?
I prefer to use goat milk. However, I do use kid milk replacer if goat milk is in short supply. I usually work up to almost half a gallon of milk a day.
The kids get bottles every few hours for several days, except for a stretch overnight when the kid is in the barn. This settles to four a day for a month, then three for a month, then two. The amount of milk goes up each feeding as the number of feedings goes down.
Raising bottle kids is time consuming. The bottles and nipples need to be washed out every time. The milk must be warm enough. And the job continues for close to three months to result in big, healthy kids.
