Now the fun begins! Besides those new kid snuggles, you get to start milking and make use of all that glorious milk! 

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After your doe freshens, or kids, you are going to want to make sure she is healthy after all that hard work she just did. Make sure she expels her placenta. I like to offer my does warm molasses water, grass and alfalfa hay and grain once she is all done and after the kids have gotten to nurse off of her if you go that route. Here is a link to the examples of what I feed my does in milk and what Twin Pear Farm does again as a reminder that we went over in our 2nd meeting. 

 

Some farms will pull the kids right away and bottle feed them so that they can sell them sooner and the kids will "be more friendly" and some leave them with their dams to raise them. I offer all the kids a bottle from the get-go just to make milk testing days a little less stressful for everyone. My first year doing it this way I only had about 2 kids that would take the bottle. The second year doing it this way I had all but 2 or 3 that would take the bottle. This is a personal choice and you need to do what works best for you and your farm. Bottle feeding kids 100% of the time is a big commitment and time consuming so not everyone is able to do that. I like half dam raising and half bottle feeding because I feel like it gives me a little more freedom and I know every kid is getting the nutrients it needs. 

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Here is an article by Pholia Farm about their Kid Management that includes "nursery pen raising," disbudding, banding, bottle/ bucket feeding and coccidia treatment plans. Their notes are very interesting!

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Within a week of birth, I disbud our kids. I do this for a few reasons. One, it is in ADGA's standards that the kids will be pollled or disbudded. When we raised meat goats we never disbudded and constantly had a big goat with its head stuck in the fence. If I had not been there to get it unstuck then it could have been attacked by a predator or, if unchecked for a while, could have died from dehydration or stress.

Here is a video on how to disbud a goat kid by Blue Cactus Dairy Goats.

The kids will also get Tetanus Antitoxin at this time for disbudding and or banding - 5cc prevention dose (no matter age or weight). 

Here is Blue Cactus Dairy Goats' video on how to wether a buckling. 

 

I also tattoo our registrable kids at this time or wait until they are of weaning age so their ears are a little bigger. ADGA will assign you your own herd tattoo number for the right ear and the year and number of kids will determine what the other ear will be. This year (2022) left ear tattoo will be "P". If I have several goat kids then they would read like this:

1st kid would be right ear RE: WM03, left ear LE: P1

2nd kid would be RE: WM03, LE: P2​

3rd kid would be RE: WM03, LE: P3 and so on and so forth. 

Here is ADGA's "How to Tattoo a Dairy Goat" article.