How long do you bottle feed?

Citylife

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I am hearing mixed reviews on how long to bottle feed baby goats. So, I am asking for more mixed reviews.............. there is so much knowledge here, I would like to hear the imput.
 

SDBoerGoats

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Well, this was my first year at feeding bottle babies, but I had so many of them I think I learned a lot. I raise Boer goats, and had 3 right off the bat in January, and just had 2 more last week. I fed the first group bottles until they were 3 months old. They were on baby bottles for the first couple weeks til they got bigger then I got one of those buckets with the nipples in them, then I could feed all three at the same time! Life got way easier then.
The ones I have now are too small to use the bucket yet so I am still having to do the bottles. I do think some people wean them off the bottles earlier than 3 months but I wanted them to be really eating Boer goat developer and hay well before I took the milk away from them.
 

Bedste

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8-10 weeks

I had triplets last year and quads this year

I gave as much as they would drink 5 times a day for the first week-- about 5 oz each feeding.



3 times a day for week two ---- three -- and week four -- about 10 oz

then at 5 weeks old we went to 20 oz twice a day and offered med goat kid food also......

at 8 weeks old they only got their morning bottles. always keeping med goat kid food available


somewhere between 9 and 10 weeks old I cut them off the bottle
 

Citylife

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I appreciate you input. Always nice to hear what others do. We are not 100% on how old they are, but they are not to happy about 2 meals a day. :)
They are starting to eat feed and have been eating hay sparsley. But, they are also learning that goat food isnt all that bad.
 

Roll farms

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I bottle feed for 3 mos, 3x a day for the 1st 2 mos, then 2x a day for 2 wks and 1x a day for 2 wks.

We bottle feed all our kids. Right now I have extra milk and so I have one 3.5 mo. old kid still getting 1 a day....I figure if I'm going down there anyway to feed others, why not let her have one too.

Here's my 'page' on bottle raising kids.....

http://www.backyardherds.com/web/viewblog.php?id=586
 
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