# How much milk do YOU feed your Nubian bottle babies?



## Farmer Jayne (Oct 21, 2013)

Thanks to y'all's help I've got the mites on the run.
Now, I have another question:
How much milk do you actually feed your Nubian bottle babies? 

My kids are three weeks old now. I'm feeding them 3 times a day. Mostly goat's milk with some raw Jersey cow's milk added when the goat's milk falls short. The larger ones are easily taking in 20 oz a feeding, way over the recommended 12 oz. The smaller one is getting 16 oz. They suck down these amounts and look for more. One in particular never stops frantically searching for the bottle. She constantly hits (hard) with her nose. The others settle down a few minutes after feeding and are happy to be petted and play. Still my bottle babies weigh less than the dam raised kids. They aren't having any adverse reactions to this amount. We also have a kid creep feeder, but none of them are seriously eating much feed yet. What do you feed and how much?


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## Ziptie (May 16, 2013)

Preface..I am not a goat expert but..Somewhere I read feed them till their sides are not caved in anymore. 

We have a set of twins we are bottle feeding now. They are a week old today. The female eats around about 9oz and the boy 11oz. I fill the bottle to 20 oz and split it between the two. Sometimes they eat it all sometimes there is a couple oz left. The boy always looks full when done. The female her sides are still sunken in, but she is bounding around like a ping pong. We feed them 4 times a day.

Keep in mind though we are in a lot colder climate then you. We have about a foot of snow on the ground.


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## Farmer Jayne (Oct 21, 2013)

Wow, Ziptie, I could not imagine bottle feeding in the serious cold. Of course, here in Florida, most of us don't have shelters made for a cold climate. I just have open ended shelters to keep them dry and out of the wind. Still, the low for the next few nights is in the 30's, with high humidity and wind. It makes the early and late feedings challenging for those of us used to being too hot.

I've pretty much decided to go with my gut and feed them around 20 oz each feeding as long as they don't show any problems. The littlest one definitely is comfortable with less. She was the runt of triplets, but is doing well. The biggest one that is always hungry has me stumped. She is so aggressively hungry, always, that I'm worried I'm not feeding her enough, but I'm already feeding her a lot. In between feedings, while the others will bump me a little looking for milk, she hits hard and constantly, like she's starving. I've never had one act like this before. She's growing well. Just don't know why she never seems satisfied, and wondering how much milk is too much?


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## mzgarden (Mar 16, 2012)

Here are my notes (I write notes to myself so I'm consistent). I've used this protocol for the last 3 years with only minior modifications based on either size or health of the kid. Typically I dam-raise, milking once a day however, there are times when I've bottle raised.

*Bottle-raised*:
Note: Weight gain should be consistent with age progression at approximately 10#/month. A 9# kid at birth should weight 19# at 4 weeks old. Weigh frequently.

If at all possible, milk the freshened dam to ensure colostrum. Another goat’s milk will be fine after colostrum (2 days).

Whole cow’s milk can be substituted if no goat milk is available.

At birth Ensure kids remain with dam to nurse colostrum
**or**
Remove kids at birth, milk Mom of colostrum and feed newborns
Kids must have colostrum within 1 hour of birth
If they will not suck the bottle, drench or tube feed to ensure colostrum

At 5 # 3 oz 4x 
7# 6 oz 3x
10# 7 oz 3x
15# 9 oz 3x
20# 12 oz 3x
25# 20 oz 2x
30# 20 oz 1x

*at birth & ongoing*
Ensure there is fresh hay and water available at kid-level, but watch for water contamination.
Note - kids can easily drown in a bucket of water but goat berries in water can be disasterous.

*at 5# & ongoing*
Offer small amount of grain feed mix: grower feed + sweet feed in night pen
 Start with higher % sweet feed and gradually convert to
higher % grower feed, increasing amounts as they grow.

Introduce kids to the herd as soon as is safe. Watch carefully but as soon as possible, allow the bottle kids to remain with the herd to learn to be goats


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## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

I get my alpines - another full size breed - up to 20oz minimum, 3x per day and keep them there for months. Every year is different and depends on how may kids I'm feeding, how many does I'm milking, and what the other demands for the milk the does make are. But as a rule, a minimum of 20oz 3x per day. I usually don't wean, and the bucket kids will self wean between 4-6 months of age. Many breeders are using free choice feeders with success. The goal is to feed large amounts of milk REGULARLY. It is my opinion that you can feed in excess of 20 oz per feeding safely to older kids as long as you're feeding multiple times per day. The less milk that is fed, you must compensate with other high quality feed (creep feed) and hay and is also a viable option - but 'feeding through' illness and parasites is less easy. Most people with dairies are making more milk than they need, especially with selling extra wethers young and cheap and selling any breeding quality bucklings and doelings asap on the bottle, to prioritize care of your retained keeper stock.

Coccidia prevention is completely necessary for good growth, and I personally creep feed a coccidistat medicated feed as well, getting kids up to 1-2lbs/head/day plus free choice hay. This ensures growthy doelings that are easily breedable by 7-8months of age and 80lbs. The bucklings should be fed a 2:1 Ca : P ratio in their feed, a lamb or goat feed should be balanced appropriately. Bucklings are vigorous and go through a decent rut for young animals. Runty stunty bucklings will not go into rut at all and often refuse to breed does, and small doelings should not be bred. I continue to grain feed bucklings through their first rut and doelings until they are confirmed bred. 

Personally, for parasite and feeding management reasons, I prefer to house young stock separately for as long as possible.


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## farmmaid (Jan 13, 2003)

Reminder: If you need to take one baby away from mom, take the biggest. Or leave all with mom and just bottle the smallest.


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## farminghandyman (Mar 4, 2005)

mine are four weeks old and I feed a quart in the morning and a quart at night,


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## motdaugrnds (Jul 3, 2002)

I always let the baby take as much as it will while keeping tabs on how tight its little tummy is feeling. I also let the baby tell me when it wants to be fed...lol yes even in the middle of the night. My purpose is to entice each baby to be assertive in getting what it needs.

The only time I deviate from above is when baby is extra weak; then I tube all the milk I can get out of its own dam. Usually only one tubing works; but have tubed more than once.


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## Ziptie (May 16, 2013)

Farmer Jayne said:


> Wow, Ziptie, I could not imagine bottle feeding in the serious cold. Of course, here in Florida, most of us don't have shelters made for a cold climate. I just have open ended shelters to keep them dry and out of the wind. Still, the low for the next few nights is in the 30's, with high humidity and wind. It makes the early and late feedings challenging for those of us used to being too hot.
> 
> I've pretty much decided to go with my gut and feed them around 20 oz each feeding as long as they don't show any problems. The littlest one definitely is comfortable with less. She was the runt of triplets, but is doing well. The biggest one that is always hungry has me stumped. She is so aggressively hungry, always, that I'm worried I'm not feeding her enough, but I'm already feeding her a lot. In between feedings, while the others will bump me a little looking for milk, she hits hard and constantly, like she's starving. I've never had one act like this before. She's growing well. Just don't know why she never seems satisfied, and wondering how much milk is too much?



Our bottle twins the male is extremely aggressive about taking the bottle away from the female. To the point I just take her out of the pen to feed her as he is such a pain.

Yah, winter sucks For the first two weeks I bring them in the house on puppy pad, as there is no way I am going out to the barn at 3 in the morning when it is -30 degrees outside to feed those critters. That is why I try to avoid having bottle babies.


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

[QUOTE="Farmer Jayne, post: 8258312, member: 361247"
How much milk do you actually feed your Nubian bottle babies? 

My kids are three weeks old now. I'm feeding them 3 times a day. Mostly goat's milk with some raw Jersey cow's milk added when the goat's milk falls short. The larger ones are easily taking in 20 oz a feeding, way over the recommended 12 oz. [/QUOTE]

If you overfeed you run the risk of diarrhea and death. I would try to keep it down a bit. I know our first baby came down with a bad case of diarrhea. We lost one too. They said it was from overfeeding.


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