How long will a kid stay with its mother?

[SarahFair]

My herd queen had a little buckling last march. We decided to keep him and made a weather out of him. I let her naturally wean him and he went off the teat Id say 4-5 months.. June/July maybe early august.

He is a mamas boy!
Always runs to her, sleeps next to her, eats out of her feed bucket..
Almost a year later!

I do like to keep the family together though


How long will a kid stay a mamas boy/girl?



She is due to kid in a few weeks and I plan on putting her in her own pen for awhile but I dont want him to get jealous and pushy with the new kid(s).
This may be a dumb question but she will protect them from him, right?

 

[currycomb]

he will stay close to his mamma as long as they are at the same location. i have several does that are grandmas, and it is a close knit family. they do like yours does, eat together, sleep together, go get water together. she might protect them from him, might not need to. kinda depends on the group dynamics. just kinda watch them. i give my babies little dog houses to go to, just to stay warm and out from under the herd. of course if there are weak kids, or triplets, they go to a kidding stall until all are able to go with the herd, or become bottle babies. whole new can of worms there!!

 

[terrilhb]

That is a great question. I have a 6 month old and she still nurses from her mom at least 1 or 2x a day. Her mom will only let her for a couple of seconds and than walks away. It is usually right after they are fed in the morning and evening. Like she needs an after dinner drink after eating.

 

[crazyland]

My herd queen nursed her first until two weeks before she delivered her second set of triplets. She just her go on and on. This time she stopped nursing at 5 months. Guess she thought better the second time around.
We will see what she does this next time. She is in with a buck for another summer kidding.
Her daughters are all still very attached to her. They are always talking to each other even thought they are seperate.

 

[babsbag]

I had a 2 year old doe nursing on her mom while her newborn doe was nursing on her. I was surprised that the older doe let her daughter nurse on her after all this time; (it had been over a year and a set of twins).She had been out of milk for a few months when she freshened again and I'll be darn if her daughter didn't take advantage of a good thing, and she let her. It was pretty funny.

They still sleep and eat together and the young doe screams when I pull her mom out for any reason. Makes milking interesting.

 

[KinderKorner]

I had a doeling that nursed off momma for 8 months.

My experience with goats is that they keep pretty close knit family groups.

My herd queen hates all goats except for her children. They eat together, sleep together. Each time she has a new set of babies she favors the newest ones the most, but she still hangs out with her other kids. She hates other babies but her own and is mean to them. But a year or two ago when her own doeling had kids she loved them. She even let them nurse off of her. It was so weird. She seemed to know they were her grandkids.

I also have a set of sisters who were born a year apart. Mama has been sold on, but the sisters still sleep together and hang out.

One of my doelings has been seperated from momma for a few months now. Anytime she gets the chance to go in the other pen she goes straight to her mama and they nuzzle each other.


Goats will remain attached her their familes as long as they are together, and I think even longer. I have no doubt that if I brought back some of the goats I sold last year their babies and siblings would remember them even now. They are smarter than you think.

 

[KellyHM]

I have a 9-month-old doeling who just quit nursing b/c I moved her mama to a kidding pen. I know for a fact she would keep nursing and take it away from the new kids if I let her. She screamed her head off for DAYS b/c I took her mother away.

 

[Queen Mum]

Goats are more like elephants than any other animal that I can think of. They travel in family groups and are very family oriented. I think this is the normal and natural way of goats and probably has always been that way since before man domesticated them. A good Mama takes care of her family. A matriarch takes care of her herd and keeps it together with a strong family bond. I have one matriarch.

I also think that's why bucks fight. Because it prevents too much inbreeding and preserves the strength of the herd. The strongest, biggest, oldest buck stays with the herd and breeds all the does. That prevents sons from breeding mamas and so on. It also allows for a stronger younger buck from somewhere else to come in and challenge a big very old buck and bring in new blood.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.