# Lousy new mom



## Springbett Farm (Jan 5, 2011)

:wallbang:Gah!! Arrrgh! I am so frustrated! I have a lovely black myotonic doe that just kidded twins. She loves them but won't feed them. Plus she hates me. She is standoffish at best but she bites me when I try to (gently) handle her. She kidded twins, like I said. Did just fine. Cleaned them, talks to them, dodges them when they try to eat. I tied her up to check her udder and see if the kids would eat or had eaten. One side was almost empty, so I let her be. The kids kept hollering. I thought I saw one of them eating. Not so. Turns out she self-milked herself on one side and the kids hadn't eaten. I tied her up again and she had a major hissy fit, flailing , biting. Then I got pissed, tied her much better and fed the poor hungry kids. I am so freakin' irritated right now. I'd sell her tomorrow if I could.


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## Kaneel (Oct 7, 2012)

Wow bites?? I've never even heard of a goat biting before...most just flip out. She just sounds plain mean!! You might want to consider bottle feeding...if you can't handle her to let her kids eat, and they are starving, I would hog tie her butt up, milk, and bottle feed. At least make sure they get their colostrum, then you can bottle feed whole milk. You have to make sure she doesn't self milk anymore, if she's been like this from the beginning she must still have colostrum that the kids need, and if she milks all of it out the kids may end up weak and sickly. And personally, after the kids are weaned or if you take them off of her, I would sell. She doesn't sound like a goat I would want to have.


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## TDG-Farms (Jul 12, 2013)

OMG thats the best story ever! My advise, wait around a corner with the kids in hand, jump out and scare her!!! Then run over with the kids and let them eat.


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## backyardFarming (Jun 13, 2013)

What does it mean when a goat "self milks"??


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## Kaneel (Oct 7, 2012)

Um...well. It nurses milk from it's own udder lol. It does to itself what it's kid would is the best way to put it. They do it sometimes because their milk tastes good, their udder hurts and it relieves the pain, and out of boredom. I've heard of some does bringing themselves into milk from self nursing.


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## backyardFarming (Jun 13, 2013)

Wow! I did not know they could do that!
Thanks.


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## Springbett Farm (Jan 5, 2011)

So it's 2am. I went to the barn to try to get her to feed her kids... again. Who would have guessed she could be any worse? She was. Fine! Her kids are in the laundry room now. They took to the bottle like champs. Fortunately, they did get some colostrum from bad mommy earlier. I don't like doing bottle babies. Crazy, I know. They might be coming to work with me tomorrow.
And she will be for sale to a nice pet home.


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## Kaneel (Oct 7, 2012)

Make sure you get the kids _all_ of her colostrum. They need every last bit they can get. Even if you have to tie that goat to the wall to milk her, those kids need colostrum. Glad they took to the bottles. They must have been so hungry, poor things!


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## Little-Bits-N-Pieces (Apr 7, 2013)

Oh that just sucks! I've had does like that, I'm with you, get rid of her! I've got 3 bottle babies right now, they are not so bad. 
I suggest a Lambar feeder, in a few days. I feed the kids warm milk and slowly wean them to cold milk and the Lambar feeder. That way I can fill it up, throw an ice pack in the bucket, and they "nurse" off it whenever they want. They still get all the milk they want, but they don't overdo it when it's cold, they limit themselves. And they don't get annoying like bottle babies get. They are friendly, but not all over you. They don't associate you with the only source of food.
I have them on the bottle for 5 days, then they get the Lambar.


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## melissaramsey90 (Mar 14, 2013)

I don't Know if this Works but I read if you (of Course you have to have another nanny with milk....) take the milk of a different nanny And put it on the Kids it Will put her scent on the babieS and She will start to Accept them. Hope this helps.


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## Kaneel (Oct 7, 2012)

Wow that's cool Lacie! It's simulating the mom so much  I was thinking the other day about researching free-choice milk...I was worried either the milk would go bad, or she would way overeat. I would do the Lambar, but I only have one bottle baby right now so it wouldn't really be worth it money wise. She's even already past the point of no return when it comes to over-friendliness...she's practically a lap dog lol. She learned from the other goats to eat leaves and such now though, so she doesn't associate only me with food.The thing is, the only wild growing thing(non hay/grain product lol) she will eat is apple leaves! She will nibble and take an interest in other things, but apparently she'll only eat what the other goats eat. And since she only saw them eating apple branches, she's set on them!


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## TDG-Farms (Jul 12, 2013)

Actually they only need about 12 oz. of colostrum but the more the better. Id put her in a milk stand and tie her back legs down if needed. A week of that and she will learn real quick. Though I still like the idea of scaring her


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## Little-Bits-N-Pieces (Apr 7, 2013)

melissaramsey90 said:


> I don't Know if this Works but I read if you (of Course you have to have another nanny with milk....) take the milk of a different nanny And put it on the Kids it Will put her scent on the babieS and She will start to Accept them. Hope this helps.


Well I dont know about putting the milk _on_ the kids, but feeding them the others does milk for a few days is normally how you would do that...
I think putting the milk on them would kinda make a mess and start to smell after a bit....


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## TDG-Farms (Jul 12, 2013)

LOL do not put milk on them. When you graph a kid onto a different dam, over the course of say a week the dam gets to know their crys, and through them eating the milk and them rubbing on her, she gets used to their smell. The smell of her raw milk has nothing to do with it. When it works, it takes 1-2 weeks normally.


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## melissaramsey90 (Mar 14, 2013)

Sorry. Still new to this. Just something I read online.


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## TDG-Farms (Jul 12, 2013)

hehe no reason to be sorry  Kinda seems logical but as you suspected, that kid would start stinking real quick. You did perfect in questioning what you read before you dove right in.


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## Springbett Farm (Jan 5, 2011)

So happy! Bad mommy has turned to good mommy. After keeping the kids in the stall with her, she has gotten the hang of feeding her kids. Yesterday, the little boy was nursing. Today, the little girl didn't want her bottle so much because she was nursing from momma, too! Wooohooo!


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## nchen7 (Feb 25, 2013)

yay! congrats!


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## ThreeHavens (Oct 20, 2011)

Sometimes the first timers don't get it ... I was blessed with a doe that had great instincts and was a great momma, but a lot of first timers don't get it.


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## Just goats (Apr 21, 2011)

So glad your babies are getting to nurse. We've got a doe Mocha that just kidded twins (we lost one though) and I was worried that she wouldn't be a good mom as her mother was terrible to her when she was a baby and wouldn't let her nurse, so we had to tie her up and also one of her hind legs for 3 months!! she never would let Mocha nurse and still to this day doesn't like her!! just weird. But Mocha turned into the best mom and follows her new baby everywhere!!! and lets her nurse okay too.


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## Little-Bits-N-Pieces (Apr 7, 2013)

Kaneel said:


> Wow that's cool Lacie! It's simulating the mom so much  I was thinking the other day about researching free-choice milk...I was worried either the milk would go bad, or she would way overeat. I would do the Lambar, but I only have one bottle baby right now so it wouldn't really be worth it money wise. She's even already past the point of no return when it comes to over-friendliness...she's practically a lap dog lol. She learned from the other goats to eat leaves and such now though, so she doesn't associate only me with food.The thing is, the only wild growing thing(non hay/grain product lol) she will eat is apple leaves! She will nibble and take an interest in other things, but apparently she'll only eat what the other goats eat. And since she only saw them eating apple branches, she's set on them!


A way to make a cheap Lambar feeder it's to take a plastic milk jug, cut a small hole in the side at the bottom, pull a lamb nipple through. And you can cut the top off to float an ice pack in there. That's what I do if I have just one to feed.


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## TDG-Farms (Jul 12, 2013)

Can make a lamb bar any size. Here is a pick of my training lamb bar. Its a 2 gallon bucket. Milk will keep drinkable for about 12 hours in temps under 75 degrees. After that it just gets nasty and you have to scrub out the lamb bar every time.

If you notice a few things on the lamb bar. there are small breather holes drilled in above the nipple area. Closer to the top the better for reducing spills out of them. We put pulled kids into a kidding pen in the barn so I only did nipples on one side so I could have the lamb bar back against the wall so I could lean over to help put babies back on nipples after they have learn to at least come up to the lamb bar. I find that when I go in the pen while teaching them the lamb bar (but after they know Im the mama) they will instinctively come over to my legs and try to find nipples there instead of focusing on the lamb bar. So once they understand where the milk is coming from, I try to stay outta the pen. We have a ton of babies every year and the quicker they learn the lamb bar, the shortly it takes me to do my chores


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## Little-Bits-N-Pieces (Apr 7, 2013)

Yep!^^ Thats the best way to do it! We had to do 5 gallon buckets in the 90's when we had over 60.
In fact, I need to make more for 2014 kidding season...


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## TDG-Farms (Jul 12, 2013)

ya me too. the nipples are starting to crack and the darn handled on my main 5 gallon lamb bar popped out earlier this week. Just a matter of time when it will do it while im lugging it to a pen and it spills everywhere. Am hoping though that it will last till the end of the year. Granted I could stop feeding em now as they are all old enough but the freezer would be full in a week and we would literally be swimming in milk.


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## Little-Bits-N-Pieces (Apr 7, 2013)

Were do you buy the nipples for it these days? I saw them on jeffers, but they are almost $3 a piece when I looked, surely they are cheaper somewhere else.

Haha, better to keep them on longer than planned, than have so much milk you have to dump it!


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## TDG-Farms (Jul 12, 2013)

ya tell me about it. I have feed more the enough to my 3 year old aussie willow trees to be ashamed  When we need a large batch we buy from jeffers but many of the locale feed stores sell em as well. So for picking up a few at a time is always open to us.


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