So, you have or soon will have goat kids. What do you need? Is there special equipment for them? The easy answer is no, at least not if you have momma on the premises too. For the most part momma will take care of everything for the kids. Of course there are things that you may want to have on hand just in case you run into an issue as I did with these two sweethearts.
If you buy them at this age you will have to bottle feed them. I know that a lot of goat owners will tell you this is the only way to buy a kid. One that is or has been bottle fed. I’ve been told that it makes them more docile and friendly, but I have to tell you that this isn’t always the case.
While bottle fed babies are more friendly and docile, dam fed, or momma fed, kids can be too. I have one right now that was totally cared for by the dam and she is probably one of the sweetest goats that I have. I usually let momma do the work. I work with the babies from day one to ensure that they are nice and friendly too.
As long as you work with the dam fed kids from the start, they can just a sweet as a bottle baby, with less work. However, this year momma came down with mastitis so we had no choice but to bottle feed these two kids. So back to the question at hand, what do you need for kids? Well my first suggestion is to have bottles on hand just in case you need them.
This will ensure you are ready to take over if the need arises. I try to keep goat milk around at all times too, for the very same reason. They do have milk replacers, but goat milk will always be best for them. However, this year, with these two I didn’t have enough from last year to make it the full time they were on bottles so we did have to end up with a milk replacer for them.
They are growing fast. In the picture above they are just 6 weeks old. I usually will keep them on the bottle until around 10 weeks so we still have a few more weeks to go. I will always recommend dam feeding the kids, but there are times when that is not an option. In that case it is best to be prepared with bottles and some sort of milk replacer for the kids should anything happen.
Have a great day!
Renee