madcow
Loving the herd life
Bottle babies can be a lot of work and the cuteness factor only goes so far after about a month of feeding and cleaning up after the precious little things. A new acquaintance of mine that raises goats says that with bottle babies he takes them and feeds them in the house and then puts them back outside with their mother so that she can tend to them the rest of the time, thus eliminating the need for keeping them inside the house penned up and cleaning up their area day after day. Of course this would only work for those situations where the baby can't get milk for some reason, like momma has no milk, momma won't allow them to nurse or an issue with the teats where the baby can't nurse. I really like the idea because it allows them to bond to you, but they also bond to their herd at the same time, and it seems like a lot less work in the long run. He said that rounding up the baby for feedings gets simple after a day or 2 as they see you as their source of food and will be waiting for you at feeding times. Seems like a win-win situation to me!