# Introducing 6 week bottle babies to the herd?



## mls4846 (Jan 13, 2013)

I've browsed the different forums but haven't seen an answer to this question...

We have 3 - 6 week old bottle babies (1m, 2f) that have been living in their own little world at our farm for 6 weeks. They are not related to any of our girls.

They are grazing, eating a bit of creep feed grain and are getting 2-16oz bottles a day and nibbling on the hay provided. They are healthy and past the 30 day quarantine period.

We would like to introduce them into our commercial herd of 13 other boer goats. (7 weaned doelings and 2 nursing mothers and their 4 - 8 week old babies.) I am considering keeping 1 of the female bottle babies and want to get her into the pen with the others so she can start learning from them.

We were told in the beginning not to co-mingle them with the nursing nannies because they would try to nurse and would be harmed. However, is it safe to mix them at 6 weeks? Do we need to have them completely off bottles first? We plan to wean them in another 10 days so waiting isn't an issue but it would be nice for them to be with the rest. 

Advice would be wonderful?


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## happybleats (Sep 12, 2010)

when its time for baby to go out side..we do so carefully...we have a pen that shares a fence line with everyone else..after a week or so of fence visiting we let them have supervised visits.... this might take a while...never leave new babies out to fend for themselves..a larger goat can and many times will hurt them..once you have had several supervised visit with no trouble..then allow then to go out and check on them often...you will know when they can adapted to the herd safely. we have five bottle babies and three just weened who all run with our herd...they learn who to stay away from fast..


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## mls4846 (Jan 13, 2013)

Thanks! For clarification - is it best to wait until they are weaned before we introduce them to the rest of the herd?


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## happybleats (Sep 12, 2010)

its not necessary to wait...ours are still on the bottle..the most important thing to be sure they are safe with the bigger goats..My moms are all pretty gentle..I have a few who can be grumpy but I have never seen any try to hurt the babies..


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## mjs500doo (Nov 24, 2012)

Same here! Just introduced 3 doelings (1 month, 3 weeks, 2 weeks) into the lactating goat pen, mainly for feed, space, and fencing reasons, as well as bottle schedule falling durin milk times. Our does are so tame. They do keep the babies in check when they need it, but they're doing great!


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