Yesterday, in my intro, I mentioned that we hadn't planned to breed our Nubian does, but this morning we noticed that one of our 3 year old does had "bagged up" (meaning that her udders are filling up with milk).  So if we're gonna have kids this year...  Bring 'em on!!    I am so hoping that we get lots of babies this year.  Never mind that I am due myself in about 5 weeks!! 

     I have read in several publications that bagging up can be a sign of impending labor.  Not so with our ladies.  Occasionally they can go up to 3 (and even 4 once!!) weeks full of milk and appear uncomfortable.  Poor things!  The norm for us is usually 2 weeks though.  We have had a doe that didn't bag up until after popping kids out--which is most confusing!!  Thankfully she is just our barnyard mascot now since she is quite aged and her udders are ruined from mastitis (she was in pretty bad shape when we got her--we were new to goats--and it was progressively worse with each breeding.  We retired her a few years ago.)

     I love new kids.  They are so much fun.  We hand raise ours using their momma's raw milk in regular baby bottles until there is too much milk to be fed from a 9 oz. bottle.  We then switch to soda pop bottles with the black rubber kid nipples.  We test for CAE every couple of years and/or before we sell any of our herd and haven't had any problems there.  We use the milk raw rather than pasteurizing it for the great health benefits.  Having raised kids by hand and also letting the momma's raise them, we've discovered that they are much more friendly and workable when raised by hand.  And it's fun!! 

     We keep our kids in the house for the first couple of weeks so that I can keep a good eye on them to make sure that everyone is eating as they should and that they are eliminating properly.  So far we've only had a problem once with scours (diarrhea) and have actually had very few problems of any kind.  An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure! 

     I will write in the future describing our feeding schedule.  It's a bit complicated but works wonders for us.