I have two pregnant dairy goats that will be giving birth soon. I am planning on selling them after they are one week old. Is this true that if you take the baby goats away from their mothers too soon the baby goat (when they grow up) will not have a strong mothering instinct.
I doubt that will be the case. To the best of my knowledge mothering instinct is an inherited rather than a learned trait.
I say no because in my herd we remove most of the babies as soon as they are born, but some of the does we allow to raise their own kids. I have a recorded grade nubian doe who I have raised since her birth. She was bottle raised in a pen with all of the other goat kids and when she first kidded I allowed her to raise her kids because I had too many animals to milk. She was extremely protective of her kids and if we successfully got the kids from her she would destroy the pen and would refuse to eat and drink until she had her kids back.
