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A system of taking kids off their Amothers soon after birth has been adopted by a number of goat farmers in this country, and is a fairly common practice in milking-goat flocks.
The experience of John Mather, at Atiamuri, is fairly typical of what can be expected from the technique, and what is required, when applied on an intensive fibre-goat farm.
On his 200-hectare property near Atiamuri in the centre of the North Island, John Mather had, by 1984, achieved lambing percentages and wool weights that were about as good as he could hope for. To make further improvements and so maintain a reasonable return, he followed his wife’s advice and went into goats. By mid-1985 they had built up a flock of 480 feral does, put in a central race and goat yards, and sub-divided the area devoted to goats into a number of smaller paddocks. G1
Angora bucks were purchased to start a grading-up programme. From what he had read, and from the experience of other goat farmers he spoke to, John Mather concluded that goats were not really good mothers under intensive conditions. Their habit of planting kids and suckling them only at long intervals, did not seem to John to allow them to take full advantage of the feed situation on the farm. He therefore adopted a system tried overseas and in New Zealand, of very early-weaning.
The feral does arrived on the farm in November, 1984, and kidding commenced June 20, 1985. By early August 104 does had produced 128 kids; six died and John was left with 60 doe kids and 62 buck kids. All kids are picked up while they are still only about 24 hours old. As does are kidded in comparatively small paddocks, it is comparatively easy to identify the mother of each kid so that records can be kept of does and their progeny. The does having been single-sire mated, the sire of each kid is also known.
At 24 hours the kid has received sufficient colostrum, but has not yet formed a strong bond with the doe; this is important for the success of the system in John’s view. On other farms it is usual to leave the kids on their mothers for about three days.
The kids are taken to the woolshed and placed in one of the small pens, and starved for 15 hours. They are then introduced to the automatic feeder and quickly learn to suckle whenever they want to. John Mather’s experience has been that if the kids are put straight on to the teat after being brought in, they tend to ‘muck about’ rather than suckle, but after 15 hours they are hungry and take to the automatic feeder very readily.
Twins
The automatic feeder, available commercially, consists of a hopper into which calfmilk replacer is fed in measured quantities, plus water, and stirred, whenever the level falls below a certain point. The warmed solution is fed through a series of plastic tubes to several banks of teats and the kids have free access to these at all times. A coccidiostat is added to reduce the risk of scouring.
In this case the milk solution is warmed, but a number of farmers have used a similar system with cold milk and achieved equally successful results. An additional advantage of this system is that kids are not exposed to intestinal worm infestations during the critical early months of life.
By early August the first-born kids in the woolshed were six weeks old and the ration had been stepped up from 4 to 6 percent, which is simply a matter of setting a dial. With a wide spread to kidding, the later kids were thus getting richer milk than the first-born kids did, but so far this had not appeared as a problem. In future John Mather anticipates that kidding will be much more concentrated. Ad lib feeding has had a marked effect on the growth rate of the kids. At 6 weeks kids were about equivalent in size to 3-month-old kids reared on their mothers.
The original intention had been to wean at about 10 or 12 weeks’ of age, but when they were introduced to pasture at 6 weeks the kids started to become boisterous. After about ten days out on grass they began to chew the teats off the automatic feeder and John Mather therefore altered his plans; the machine was turned off and the kids weaned at 8 weeks. They were put out onto good autumn-saved pasture with access to goat nuts and quality hay.
Within a short time they had learned to respect the electric fences and to make use of the shelters placed in the paddock, and had settled well. They were drinking from the water trough rocks were placed in it to prevent drowning — and were putting on weight at much the same rate as they were while on ad lib milk.
The average liveweight at four months was about 25kg, which was on a par with the average weight of yearlings raised on their mothers. The goat nuts are available at all times from a round calf-type dispenser, and a few kids have scoured a little as a result of gorging on the pelletted ration, but treatment with a scour mixture has cleared the problem up quickly.
The benefits of rapid early growth in terms of fleece production in later life, in early mating and good mothering ability, are obvious. There is an additional benefit in that does which gave birth to kids removed from them a day or so after birth, begin to cycle again within a week or so. As their condition has not been reduced by the need to provide milk for their young, they can go back to the buck within about three weeks of giving birth and two crops of kids can be achieved annually.
weaned goats
John Mather’s first mating was protracted, because the does had not been long on the property and not all had settled completely to their new surroundings. At the second mating 10 Angora bucks were placed in separate paddocks with a group of does, and as many as ten were seen to be ‘lining up’ at a time, so that a much more concentrated kidding is expected next time.
When the new kidding season does start Mr and Mrs Mather will be very busy with kids as they need considerable care and attention, but at least most of the work is inside. This is another advantagf; kidding can be timed to take place at more or less any time of the year, because the does do not suffer the stress of rearing kids, and the kids are kept warm and well-fed under cover. On very cold wet days John will pick up kids only a few hours old, and provide colostrum for them in the shed.
The intensive nature of this system is extended to the provision of a large number of small paddocks through the use of electric sub-divisional fences. This allows single-sire mating to be undertaken and accurate recording of each kid’s breeding. From the records kept at the time of the first kidding, John Mather bserved that one buck sired nearly half the 25 sets of twins born. His performance at the next kidding will be watched with interest.
The small paddocks also make it easier to go round each morning and collect up kids, and to observe does that have just dropped a kid or are about to. They have also proved invaluable for feeding out, as they are all served by a central race. The weaned kids are so humanised that if John was to go into the paddock with any sort of vehicle to feed out hay, he would have great difficulty getting out from under the deluge of ‘super tame’ goats. With the race it will be possible to simply toss hay over the fence.
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