6 week old kid struggling to finish milk bottle

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3H Homestead

3H Homestead

A little bit of everything in rural Colorado
Neighbor
Joined
Feb 13, 2022
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19
Location
Colorado
I acquired 2 kid Nigerian dwarf goats about 3 weeks ago (that's a whole other story for another post). They are both doelings. They have both been drinking milk really well, until yesterday. One of the doelings struggled with her bottle yesterday (she is smaller, but was initially drinking more than her sister), and struggled even more with it this evening. I have them down to 1 bottle a day, in the evening. She shows interest in the bottle, but is only able to drink 1 or 2 ounces before she pulls away. I hear noises in her rumen just before she pulls away. She cuddles in closely to me for about 3-5 minutes, then attempts the bottle again, only another to drink 1 or 2 ounces before rumen making noise and she pulls away again. She drank more last night than tonight. I haven't really been able to keep a huge eye on her to see if she's still eating hay or grain, but she otherwise still has energy and hangs out with her sister. I am very new to goat care, so I'm at a complete loss as to what I may be dealing with. Can someone point me in some kind of direction to figure out what I'm dealing with and hopefully be able to help this little girl?
 
3H Homestead said:
I acquired 2 kid Nigerian dwarf goats about 3 weeks ago (that's a whole other story for another post). They are both doelings. They have both been drinking milk really well, until yesterday. One of the doelings struggled with her bottle yesterday (she is smaller, but was initially drinking more than her sister), and struggled even more with it this evening. I have them down to 1 bottle a day, in the evening. She shows interest in the bottle, but is only able to drink 1 or 2 ounces before she pulls away. I hear noises in her rumen just before she pulls away. She cuddles in closely to me for about 3-5 minutes, then attempts the bottle again, only another to drink 1 or 2 ounces before rumen making noise and she pulls away again. She drank more last night than tonight. I haven't really been able to keep a huge eye on her to see if she's still eating hay or grain, but she otherwise still has energy and hangs out with her sister. I am very new to goat care, so I'm at a complete loss as to what I may be dealing with. Can someone point me in some kind of direction to figure out what I'm dealing with and hopefully be able to help this little girl?
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Hopefully others will chime in. All I can think of is maybe worms, but that's pretty young???
@sonya123 - can't think who else has goats.
 
How much have you been feeding? How old ? I feed our bottle babies 3 - 8 oz bottles of milk replacer a day, that's it. But ours are larger. Has she pooped? She might be constipated. If she doesn't poop give her a little bit of mineral oil, or if you dont have any corn oil. Just maybe 3 ml.
Check her eyelids, if very pale, she has parasites and needs to be dewormed. Pull the eyelid down and look. If it is red, it's fine, pink ok, pale bad. But very unlikely for babies.
Check temp. If over 104 she might have pneumonia
Hope this helps
( we have a farm and lots of goats and some sheep)

one more thing, she might be low on minerals or vitamins. You can give her some Nutridrench for goats, they sell it at Tractor Supply usually
 
To go along with what Sonya said, WHAT are you feeding her? They need a milk replacer, not grocery store milk. That will have all the gut bacteria they need cooked out of it. You can also give her some bloat meds that will help if she's having gas pains.
 
My first thought is maybe a bloat issue. Is her left gut bigger than the right? I use a baking soda water mixture to relieve gas for the little ones that I syringe into their mouths. Sometimes if you raise their back side up and down while rubbing their tummies, it will help them belch. If not bloat my concern would be a Coccidiosis issue where you may need to get some Corivd. Just be careful cause that can drain their vitamin levels and you may need to get B complex injections to help.
 
Dani said:
My first thought is maybe a bloat issue. Is her left gut bigger than the right? I use a baking soda water mixture to relieve gas for the little ones that I syringe into their mouths. Sometimes if you raise their back side up and down while rubbing their tummies, it will help them belch. If not bloat my concern would be a Coccidiosis issue where you may need to get some Corivd. Just be careful cause that can drain their vitamin levels and you may need to get B complex injections to help.
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Coccidia causes massive diareah butts, you can't miss that one

But yes, baking soda if bloated is good too

So how is the little goat doing?
 
So sorry for never responding, everyone. Thank you SO much for all the recommendations! My husband normally feeds her and at the time she was struggling with her bottle, my husband had gone out of town for work. I think she was missing her daddy 🙁 I was given these goats on a whim and at the time I received them, they were drinking JUST whole cows milk. I began making a mix of whole milk with 1 cup buttermilk and 1 can evaporated milk. She's doing much better now, getting bigger everyday. I provide baking soda and minerals to both her and her sister, but they tend to knock those bowls over and have yet to show interest in either. When these goats were given to me, I don't think their hooves had ever touched soil, nor had they ever been around goats. I've been transitioning them daily to the "goat" life - I have a small pen specifically for them inside my goat pen and they spend most of the day everyday out there with the adult goats. They are now about 8 weeks old and are getting 10 oz milk mix every night. I was in the complete dark about bottle feeding kids when I received them, so my vet suggested I drop them to once a day bottles by 4 weeks and wean by 8 weeks 😳 I'm not QUITE ready for that, but I did drop them to once a day, not knowing any better at the time. My only question/concern now is, I still don't think they're drinking water from a water bowl! 🤦🏼‍♀️ I have the adults' water bowl near the fence where I put the kids, hoping they'd get the drift, but it appears they still don't get it. They eat alfalfa and grain beautifully everyday otherwise. Anyone have suggestions on how I can train these doelings to drink water like goats?
 
sonya123 said:
How much have you been feeding? How old ? I feed our bottle babies 3 - 8 oz bottles of milk replacer a day, that's it. But ours are larger. Has she pooped? She might be constipated. If she doesn't poop give her a little bit of mineral oil, or if you dont have any corn oil. Just maybe 3 ml.
Check her eyelids, if very pale, she has parasites and needs to be dewormed. Pull the eyelid down and look. If it is red, it's fine, pink ok, pale bad. But very unlikely for babies.
Check temp. If over 104 she might have pneumonia
Hope this helps
( we have a farm and lots of goats and some sheep)

one more thing, she might be low on minerals or vitamins. You can give her some Nutridrench for goats, they sell it at Tractor Supply usually
Click to expand...

I had checked her temperature at the time, it was 102.1, both days she was concerning me. After about 2 days of her struggling with the bottle, she got right back to it and is once again beating her sister at finishing her bottle first, even though she's 1.5 lbs smaller! 😂🥰 I just raised their bottle feeds to 10 oz this evening, but now that I've read this comment, I'll go back down to 8oz. They sure did enjoy the extra 2 oz tonight, though! I finally have some Nutridrench on hand, but did not, at the time. I have not yet done a famacha check, but intend to do that tomorrow. I have noticed some dry poop in their room today, but as I mentioned a few minutes ago, I think she & her sister are struggling to figure out how to drink water out of a bowl 🙁🤦🏼‍♀️
 
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Can’t you give them water by bottle if they’re not voluntarily drinking it? I assume nothing here. Would it be better to introduce them to water in a bucket? You say their water is in a bowl. I’m glad they’re doing better!
 
Patchouli said:
Can’t you give them water by bottle if they’re not voluntarily drinking it? I assume nothing here. Would it be better to introduce them to water in a bucket? You say their water is in a bowl. I’m glad they’re doing better!
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Yes, I can give them water in a bottle. The first 2 weeks I had them, that's what I was doing, but truthfully, that takes a LOT of my time and I am limited on spending that much time with them. I have turkeys, chickens, adult goats, bees, vegetables/plants/mushrooms, pet dogs, and a house to tend to, too 🤯😂🤷🏼‍♀️ ah, farming life 👩🏼‍🌾. At 8 weeks old, I think it's kind of crucial for them to start learning how to be goats... right? 🤷🏼‍♀️

The previous owners had them in their garage, was not working on teaching them to be goats, didn't even have a water bowl, hay, minerals, or baking soda accessible to them! 🤯🙁 so I knew I was taking on a huge project when I decided to bring them home. It's been a heck of a learning process for me, too, cuz I had never even worked with goats, much less kids, when I decided to adopt these cuties. They have improved significantly, for sure, but there are still clearly challenges I'm working on overcoming with these guys. The adult goats and my turkeys came from this farm as well, so it was all thrown on me all at once. I'm loving every minute of it, but still learning every minute of every day. My turkeys started laying eggs about a week ago, so now I'm incubating turkey eggs (that's a first for me as well), and the adult goats never had minerals or baking soda available to them either. The first 2 weeks I had them, they were blowing through the minerals like it was water, but that has slowed down considerably, thankfully (minerals are EXPENSIVE!). I have 5 adult goats altogether; 2 does, 2 bucks, and a hermaphrodite. I was told the hermaphrodite is sterile, I'm hoping that's true, because when I got the goats, ALL OF THEM WERE TOGETHER! 🤯🤯 I'm almost certain my 2 does are pregnant, I have a vet appointment schedule at the end of this month to get tested for that, as well as CAE, CL, and Johnes. I received no paperwork on these goats, so I'm doing everything in the complete dark, but I'm dedicated! Did a fecal count on adults last week and an currently worm free! One challenge down, a gazillion more to go! 😯🤷🏼‍♀️🥰👩🏼‍🌾
 
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