Small lambs and kids may need extra help and benefit from being put on a bottle. These may be a lot smaller or larger than the rest of the litter. Often it is appropriate to pull and bottle feed the odd-sized lamb or kid. If a doe or ewe has a large litter and one or two must be pulled to bottle feed, producers need to consider a few factors. Hungry lambs or kids will generally accept a bottle however, it may be harder to get an older a lamb or kid to accept a bottle the first time it is offered. In this situation, it will need to be tube fed until it is able to nurse. A chilled lamb or kid may lose its nursing reflex. Babies from large litters that need supplementing may stand hunched and get chilled. Does and ewes with large litters may be able to feed them for the first week or so, but as the demand for milk by their offspring increases, one of the lambs or kids may start to fall behind. Other reasons for bottle feeding are rejected kids and lambs, litters that are too large for the dam to feed, and weak or sick lambs and kids.įor animals with large litters, the babies may be able to stay with the dam and a few bottles given to the smaller babies each day. Orphaned kids and lambs will need to be bottle fed if they are not grafted on to another dam. Anyone purchasing dairy breed kids should be prepared to bottle feed them (Figure 1).
As a result, many dairy goat kids are sold as bottle babies. For dairy goats, producers may opt to bottle feed as a biosecurity measure and to prevent damage to the does’ udders by nursing kids. Many factors may require producers to bottle feed lambs and kids. Nubian doe kids nursing from a bottle, Photo Credit Maegan Perdue FS-1157 | April 2021 Bottle Feeding Kids and Lambs Figure 1.
0 kommentar(er)
