Friendly Dam-Raised Goat Kids: Oxymoron or Opportunity?
Dam-raised goat kids: A polite euphemism for wild, uncatchable, stand-offish.
One of the benefits of bottle-raising a goat is that a human bond is practically guaranteed. Kids see you from a distance and they run full tilt in gleeful expectation, following you wherever you go. On the other hand, allowing mothers to raise their own kids is less time-consuming for you, and it has many health and social benefits for the kids.
Dam-raised goat kids are generally more robust than bottle babies, in part because humans can’t give enough round-the-clock feedings to mimic the dam’s natural feeding schedule. We compress bottle feedings to 2 to 4 times per day and give more milk per feeding to compensate for less frequent meals. A nursing kid can drink more milk in 24 hours than a bottle kid, without consuming as much milk at one time. This aids in rapid early development with less potential for digestive problems.
Additionally, dam-raised goat kids have the social benefits of being raised in a proper herd structure. Herds consisting of all similar-aged goats can potentially take on a Lord of the Flies appearance, with bullies and outcasts being more common than in herds run by multi-aged matriarchs. Mamas protect their kids from bullies while showing them how to properly navigate herd hierarchies. And let’s face it: There’s nothing sweeter than seeing kids nestled against the warm, soft belly of their protective mama.
Dam-Raising and Human Bonding
So how do you reap the health and social benefits of dam-raising yet still form a strong bond with the kids?
First, start with friendly parents. It’s difficult to raise friendly goat kids from mothers who fearfully usher their babies away from people, and kids grow up mimicking the dam’s skittishness. The sire is also important to the equation. I bought an exceptionally friendly buck a few years ago, and he has stamped nearly all of his offspring with a natural affinity for humans that I’ve seldom seen so overtly displayed in goat kids from other sires.
Next, try to attend the birth so that the first things a kid sees, hears, feels, and smells are its mother and humans working together to dry it, warm it, and help it find milk. This early intervention also reassures the mother that you’re there to help and not harm her offspring. New babies toddle toward me as part of their family. They never learn what it means to run from a human.
Learn from Your Goats
Watching how goats interact in a herd is extremely beneficial for learning how to bond with kids. The wisdom of my first herd queen, Petunia, was particularly instructive. She was a benevolent soul who loved all babies, but when she wasn’t raising kids of her own, she became the “cool auntie” of the herd. She spent time playing with the kids and babysitting them, but she never allowed them to nurse. Nevertheless, the kids all loved her and followed her everywhere on adventures. She butted heads and frolicked with them, let them climb on her and tug her beard, but she never allowed them to be rude, rough, or disrespectful toward her. She never allowed kids to bully each other in her presence. In bonding with our babies, I’ve tried to follow Petunia’s example.
Should young kids be allowed to jump on people, climb into laps, chew hair, etc.? Absolutely! The short period of infancy is perhaps the most fun part of goat-raising, so never discourage a baby from using you for a jungle gym. It’s important not to quash their playfulness and curiosity. I take my cues from their mothers. Mother goats are very permissive with youngsters. Kids are allowed to climb on mama, tug her ears, chew her wattles, and even use her belly for a trampoline. She (and other non-related herd members) are usually very tolerant of young kids’ antics, but as the kids grow, their tolerance fades until, eventually, kids are no longer allowed to take the same liberties they did as newborns.
I follow a similar progression. Very young kids are allowed to satisfy their curiosity about hair, buttons, zippers, shoelaces, and climbing on people, but as they grow, these curious behaviors morph into demands for attention. Kids rapidly become big, bold, and mature enough to handle some discipline in their lives. Within a week or two, non-related herd members have laid down the law, and soon, the mothers start to enforce boundaries as well.
Since kids are already learning correct behavior from other goats, having them learn it from humans is not a big leap. I begin to brush them aside when they jump on me, and I remove hair and clothing items from their mouths. There’s no need to punish young kids, but they do need to learn boundaries before they’re big enough to become nuisances.
Spend Time Away from the Herd
One of the things my husband and I do when the kids are under a month old is bring them into the house every night for a movie. They spend about two hours sleeping on our laps before we put them back with their moms. The kids get bonding time, and the mamas get free babysitting, which they quickly learn to appreciate! We also spend time with the kids in our “goat playground,” and we take daily walks with our herd so kids learn the habit of following people.
Bottle feeding forces you to interact with kids at least twice a day, so don’t let dam-raising make you lazy! I’ve found that time, more than food, is the key to a great bond. Take the 2 to 3 times a day that you would otherwise have spent preparing and feeding bottles and use it to cuddle and play with the kids instead. Your kids will run to you for entertainment instead of bottles. And that’s okay!
* Before dam-raising, make sure your does are healthy and have been blood tested for CAEV. This is a debilitating disease passed from mothers to kids through milk. Milk from CAEV-positive goats must be pasteurized in order to be safe for kids to drink.
** This article is geared toward small producers, as individual bonding time may not be practical in a large herd.
NAN HASSEY and her husband Phil live on 40 acres in Rye, Colorado, where they breed pack and dairy goats. They bought their first pack goat in 2002 and started their own breeding program in 2012. They love Alpine/Nubian crosses and have trained their wethers to pack and to pull carts and carriages in single and team hitches. www.Goatorama.com
Originally published in the March/April 2025 digital issue of Goat Journal.
