CARING FOR AN ORPHAN KID (a young goat)

If your adult goat gives birth to a kid, and died in the process. Here are easy ways to care for the orphan Kid.


 

A baby goat will not eat grass yet, the predominant food for now is milk. It needs to be fed COLOSTRUM, a disease-fighting substance it gets from its mother's milk to prevent stomach infection in first few weeks of life. 

Simply look around for another female goat that has kid it is nursing to see if it will allow your orphaned kid to suck. If she refuses, see if you can capture her and press her milk into a feeding bottle to feed your orphaned kid. Alternatively, look for a cow from the nearby cattle farmers to get fresh cow milk and feed your kid.

Peradventure, you are unable to do the above, Prepare an artificial colostrum for the orphaned kid with the easy steps below:

Appropriately diluted condensed milk (Do not use sweetened milk. If you do, the baby goat will surely die of diarrhea)

One beaten egg yolk

One dessert spoon of glucose or lactose (if unavailable, use sugar)

One very small teaspoon (3 ml) of cod liver oil (or castor oil)

Mix (shake) well and divide the mixture into four equal feeds for the first day's feeding. Divide it into six equal feeds instead of four if the kid is small or weak.


Then get a feeding bottle, make sure the feeding bottle has a small teats that are somewhat similar to the mothers teats and pour the prepared content inside and feed the kid (If you notice extremely watery poo that stains the body of the goat, stop the formula immediately).

You will have to feed it at least 6 times in a day. As she grows older, this will reduce. The goat will become imprinted (see you as one of it's kind) to you.

Finally, if you observe baby goats with their mothers, you will notice that they lie quite close (bodies touching each other) during sleeping time, this is because of bodily warmth. Please make sure to keep the baby goat in a warm place.