Tips and tricks for weaning goat kids

Weaning is an important stage of the rearing period and a challenging time for the young animal. But how can you ensure successful weaning? Britt van Casteren, our young stock specialist, offers tips and tricks for weaning your goat kids. Read on below!

Preparing for weaning

Before the weaning process can begin, it is important that the goat kids are old and heavy enough. It is also important to have a uniform group of animals. Goat kids that are too small should be returned and should not be included in the weaning process. A goat kid must be at least 7 weeks old and weigh 13 kg before it can be weaned off milk. If this is not the case, the animal is not yet ready for weaning.

The following three points are of great importance in the weaning process:
1. Feed intake
2. Water intake
3. Milk

1. Concentrate intake

During the first stage of a goat kid’s life, only the abomasum is used for the digestion of milk. It is important that, by the time of weaning, the goat kid has developed sufficiently to become a ruminant. The development of the rumen is of great importance in this regard.

Key points to consider when assessing whether the rumen is sufficiently developed for weaning are:

• Aim for a feed intake of 200^gram of concentrate per goat kid, per day.
• The rumen content of the animal is of great importance. Check each individual animal to see if its rumen is sufficiently filled; this gives an initial indication of the total amount of solid feed the goat kid has consumed.
• Make sure there is enough feeding space; ideally, 20% of the goat kids should be able to feed at the same time. Goat kids learn to eat by watching others eat!

Please note! Bear in mind that the fastest-growing goat kids are often the worst at eating concentrate. These animals have usually drunk too much milk and have therefore grown very quickly. However, the transition to solid feed is often too drastic for them, and this can lead to a severe weaning dip or even Clostridium.

Looking to optimise the weaning process? Then provide extra vitamins and minerals! Denkacare Vitalcure contains these extra vitamins and minerals, providing additional support during weaning. As well as offering this extra support, Vitalcure helps to stimulate feed intake. Sprinkling the powder over the feed encourages goat kids to explore and eat the feed.

2. Water uptake

Fresh drinking water promotes the intake of concentrate. To ensure a smooth weaning period, it is important that sufficient fresh drinking water is available.

• By adding an electrolyte mix, such as Denkacare Vitalfort, to the water, you can encourage water intake. Offering Vitalfort for 5 days before weaning will increase water intake. Use a drinking bowl (approximately 2 litres) that fits easily into the feeding alley and does not slide around too much. By changing the water in the bowl two or three times a day, the goat kids will come to drink more often.
• If you have a drinking bowl with a lever, it may take some time for the goat kids to learn how to use it. To make it easier for them to get water into the bowl, you can modify the lever slightly so that they can press it down more easily. This way, the animals can learn to drink more easily whilst playing!

3. Milk

To ensure the goat kids are properly prepared for weaning, it is important that they start to drink less milk. There are various ways to reduce their milk intake:

• Two weeks before weaning, remove any hard teats and any teats with little or no notch;
• By fitting aquarium taps between the tubes, you can control the flow rate. This limits the amount of milk taken in;
• To reduce milk intake, the number of teats can be reduced to one teat per 20-25 animals, compared with 10-15 animals per teat during the weaning phase;
• Larger pens encourage goat kids to be more active and spend less time at the teat, resulting in lower milk intake than in smaller pens.

1. Goat kids need to do more than just achieve an intake of 200 g of concentrate; they also need to be able to make good use of them. This requires a well-developed rumen. To support rumen development, animals should eat good-quality concentrate to stimulate the development of the rumen papillae (responsible for nutrient absorption) and receive sufficient roughage to promote rumen wall development. Adequate roughage also helps reduce the risk of rumen acidosis. Rumen acidosis can lead to rumen keratosis (hardening of the rumen papillae), reducing the animal’s ability to absorb nutrients.

2. A 14 kg goat kid can drink up to 4 litres of milk (4 litres is equivalent to 600 g of milk powder). That is 4.3 per cent of its body weight in terms of the nutrition it derives from milk. To maintain this growth, this must now come from the concentrate. That means they have to eat almost 500 grams of pellets!