baby goats

[muenkel]

Help!!

any advice on raising baby goats? i believe we put the cart before the horse, we picked up a 3 month old buck, just weaned, and were unable to purchase the fence today to put him in.. sooo, he will spend the days on a dog run and nights in the chicken pen after the hens go to roost, and will be getting another 3 month old buck in a few days, i put out water and grain for him, but he is so sad, crying for his mommy

i hear they have allergies to corn and chicken feed, any thing else ????

 

[SA Farm]

First take a deep breath. Is he wethered or are you planning to wether him and the other goat you're planning to get? Dog run and chicken coop for temporary lodging is just fine. If there's a dog house with some straw in the dog run, you don't even have to move him.
Give him only a tiny big of grain, fresh water daily, and some nice hay. I hope you asked his previous owner what he was being fed hay and grain-wise, since any diet change should be gradual to avoid bloat and other problems.
Once his new buddy joins him, his crying should lessen as goats are herd animals and are happiest when they have their own kind to socialize with.
That all said, congratulations on your new addition!

 

[cassie]

Help!!

any advice on raising baby goats? i believe we put the cart before the horse, we picked up a 3 month old buck, just weaned, and were unable to purchase the fence today to put him in.. sooo, he will spend the days on a dog run and nights in the chicken pen after the hens go to roost, and will be getting another 3 month old buck in a few days, i put out water and grain for him, but he is so sad, crying for his mommy

i hear they have allergies to corn and chicken feed, any thing else ????

If goats were allergic to corn my whole herd would have been dead. I fed my goats COB which is corn, oats, and barley. I have been around hundreds and hundreds of dairy goats and all of them were fed corn in one form or another. That said, chicken feed can kill them if they aren't used to it. Another thing to be aware of is that grain rations formulated for horses sometimes have too much copper for goats.

 

[muenkel]

well the pen thing did not work out, many because he (Norman) would not quit calling for mommy, the only thing he was going to call up were some hungry coyotes, so we kicked my dog out of her lg dog crate and put him in it with water and feed and placed two lg blankets over it and placed him in the garage for safety , he's not making any noise,

 

[SA Farm]

Aw, that's good. Guess he was just feeling lost with too much room and no company

 

[muenkel]

well the poor thing is so stressed, and no they did not tell me what feed to buy and i bought the regular feed not the sweet, so today i go and get the sweet to mix in, it just pains me to hear him, its like having a baby in the house i just want to pick him and comfort him, i hope it gets better when the new one comes,

so speaking of bucks, is wether meaning to fix them? and should i fix at least one of them? i would like to breed goats, but not until I'm ready and also of course we need a female,

 

[SA Farm]

well the poor thing is so stressed, and no they did not tell me what feed to buy and i bought the regular feed not the sweet, so today i go and get the sweet to mix in, it just pains me to hear him, its like having a baby in the house i just want to pick him and comfort him, i hope it gets better when the new one comes,

so speaking of bucks, is wether meaning to fix them? and should i fix at least one of them? i would like to breed goats, but not until I'm ready and also of course we need a female,

Aw. Yes, a wether is a fixed buck. I would recommend wethering one of them, since you really don't need 2 bucks to start with and they'll fight and stink to high heaven during rut

Wait until you have the other and choose which one to keep as a buck based on what you want to breed for. If you're planning to breed milking lines, you may want to inquire about their dams.
Here's a great website, if you'd like to do some reading/research

http://fiascofarm.com/goats/index.htm

 

[muenkel]

well we put the little dude in the coop with the hens, he wanted in, sooooo, and the hens don't seem to mind either, and we did take out the feeder for the hens so the goat won't eat their food,, so we discussed things and after following someones link from an earlier post, we have decided that we should make our buck and wether, and the other one that we are getting too, and wait until we have some does maybe next year and see how it goes before decided to breed, who knows maybe well just adopt goats from other people instead, were looking to just use them for clearing out our underbrush.

 

[texaschickyall]

He will probably cry until you get him a friend. They aren't solitary animals. And as far as not weathering, bucks will drink their own urine and stink to high heaven. I have a pair that LOVE to sleep in my coop. They follow my chickens all day and when they go to roost, that pair of goats goes right in with them. The only time it was issue is when I had a broody with little chicks, I was worried they would get stepped on.