nursing doe

[bookwormom]

I am about to name this place the nuts farm. we have a yearling doe that is still nursing from her mother. we have kept them separated for six weeks at a time, thought she would get it out of her system, nope. that is all she has on her brain. I keep them apart at night so I can milk some in the morning. Keeping them apart during the day tunred out too much of a hassle. Husband is not very thrilled with the goats. they eat the dog's food, so it is a chore to feed the dog, a GP pup. the pup likes to crawl in the chickenhouse and eat the chicken feed, the goats hang out at the barn and would starve while surrounded by good browse. this time of year there is still lots of japanese honeysuckle, which they love. all they need to do is go eat it. they do so ravenously when I am there with them, if I go back to the house they go back to the barn and wait to get into dogfood, chickenfeed or force their way into the haystorage place. I see other goats all over the place, only ours seem to hang out right at home all the time. does some one know what is wrong with our critters?

[wr]

I have encountered the same problem in cattle and it can be resolved by a face plate and would imagine the same can be found for goats. It's a handy little item that simply attaches to the nose by spring or screw mechanism and prevents the calf from sucking but they can easily graze. If you can't find one, I would recomend selling the kid because often, when a doe or cow calves, they'll pick up the older offspring and simply let the baby starve to death. I used to protect my trees from my goats by running hotwire around them and it is important to protect your trees because they will literally strip the bark and kill them.