Courtesy of Danielle Langloism, Wikipedia CCLSurrogate Goat Mothering
Some kiddings don’t go well and the dam is left fearful of her kids. Some dams don’t produce enough milk. Others are just lousy mothers. In any of these cases, or any others in which the original mother is unable or unwilling to feed her kids, there exists the possibility to avoid bottle feeding by using a surrogate.
Surrogate goat mothering, known as grafting kids onto a new mom, is successful more often than you might think but it takes some patience and perseverence on the part of the human. Dams know their babies by smell first and sound second so in order to successfully graft a kid onto a new mother, the kid needs to begin to smell like her. This is done by getting milk from the prospective mom into the kid you want to graft. The more milk over the most time, the better.
Here’s what I did: while bottle feeding the kids from one mom who doesn’t produce and another who was terrified of her buckling, I put each doe in the stanchion, one at a time, and allowed whichever kids that were hungry to nurse on whichever mom they chose. I supplemented with the bottle and did this three times a day for several days. I also wiped a little milk from the mama on the face and top of the head of the baby I wanted to graft.
After 3 days, the terrified doe decided she liked the other doe’s buckling and has taken him on as her own with no resistence. The underproducing doe is now willingly giving what she has to her doeling which leaves the “scary” buckling with no mama. However, he’s a resourceful little guy and takes every opportunity to do some drive-by nursing on a mama when one of the other kids has one stationary for feeding.
While I still have to supplement with bottle feeding, I don’t have to give full feedings 3 times a day which save a lot of time and hassle. So if you find that your doe/kid groups just aren’t working, try sharing the wealth among the does that are in milk. You haven’t lost anything if you try and are unsuccessful but you’ve saved yourself some bottle feeding and improved a mother/kid bond if you can help put others together.
