Bottle Raising vs. Dam Raising Goat Kids: Which Is Best for Your Farm?

🍼 Bottle Raising vs. Dam Raising Goat Kids: What’s Right for Your Farm?

As we head into our first year of kidding, one big question has been front and center for us:
Should we bottle-raise or dam-raise our goat kids?

Everyone seems to have strong opinions on this topic—and honestly, so do we. But to make sure we're approaching this with both our heads and our hearts, we’ve done a thorough review of the pros and cons of each option.

Whether you’re new to goats or just rethinking your strategy this season, we hope this breakdown helps you decide what’s best for your farm, your does, and your kids.

👉 What do we mean by dam-raising vs. bottle-raising?

Dam-raising means letting the mother goat (the “dam”) raise her own kids by nursing them naturally.
Bottle-raising involves feeding the kids yourself—either by hand with individual bottles or by using a lamb bar system (a bucket fitted with nipples that lets multiple kids drink at once).

🐐 Dam Raising: Letting Mama Do the Work

✅ Pros

• No bottle-feeding chores: Kids nurse on demand—no late nights or mid-day feedings.

• Better herd manners: Dam-raised kids are less likely to treat humans like goats (which matters when they’re 130 lbs).

• Healthier socialization: Kids learn goat behavior naturally from mom and the herd.

• Early feed learning: They start mimicking mom's foraging—eating hay, weeds, and browse sooner.

• Lower mastitis risk (in most conditions): Regular nursing reduces udder pressure and infection risk.

  Why Mastitis Risk Is Lower When Kids Nurse:

• Frequent, natural milk removal: Nursing kids empty the udder more often than most hand-milking schedules, which helps prevent milk buildup, a key factor in mastitis.

• Less human error: Machine or hand milking can occasionally leave milk behind, cause injury, or introduce bacteria through equipment or technique.

• Hormonal support: Nursing stimulates natural oxytocin release, improving milk letdown and immune function in the udder.
  

When Mastitis Risk Can Increase With Nursing:

• Uneven nursing or orphaned teats: If a doe has twins and one teat isn’t being used much, that side may become engorged and prone to infection.

• Strong or aggressive nursers: Some kids over-nurse or cause trauma to teats, especially as they grow.

• In dirty conditions: Wet or filthy bedding and dirty mouths can introduce bacteria to the udder.
  
  Bottom Line: Healthy, active kids + clean conditions = lowest mastitis risk.
  Bottle-raising requires you to act as the udder, so if milking isn’t done cleanly or consistently, mastitis risk can rise.

❌ Cons

• Disease risk: Moms can pass CAE or other illnesses through milk.

• Teat injuries: Sharp baby teeth can damage the dam’s udder.

• Safety concerns: Kids can be injured by adult goats in shared pens.

• Less supervision: Harder to monitor individual kid health, behavior, and intake.

• Kid-proofing challenges: Pens designed for adults may pose drowning or injury hazards to tiny kids.

• Coccidia control is harder: Shared bedding with adults means higher parasite loads.

• Difficult to monitor individual intake: Especially with multiples, it’s hard to know if everyone is getting enough.

• No early weaning: Dam-raised kids usually won’t transition to bottles, so they can’t be sold before 8 weeks.

• Risk of dam rejection: Late rejection can make bottle transition impossible, risking stunted growth or worse.

• Early buckling risk: If your kids are male, they may become fertile much sooner than expected—sometimes as early as 7–8 weeks. In a mixed-age group or free-range setup, this can lead to accidental breedings with adult does or even young doelings. Preventing this may require buck aprons, supervised nursing, or early separation, and even then, accidents can happen. Doelings that are bred too young face serious risks including birthing complications, stunted growth, and long-term health issues.

• Winter weather risks in small or limited facilities: For farms without large barns or shelters, kids may be more likely to suffer from goat pile-ups causing suffocation in cramped spaces, or get chilled/frostbite in inadequate shelter.
  
  Note: In bottle-raising setups, frostbite and cold-related deaths also increase if not carefully managed. However, with smaller numbers, kids can sometimes be temporarily relocated indoors during severe storms or cold snaps for extra protection.
  
  🐐💡 Helpful Tip: Hunching in young kids often signals they’re cold or in pain—check their warmth and health promptly!

🧴 Bottle Feeding Goat Kids: Control, Bonding, and Extra Work

🍼 Individual Bottles

✅ Pros

• Track intake precisely: Know exactly how much each kid eats.

• Safer pen setup: No adult goats means fewer accident risks.

• Easier one-on-one time: Bond with each kid and monitor health closely.

• No udder damage risk: Mom keeps her teats intact.

• Earlier sales possible: Bottle babies can go to new homes before weaning.

• Better individualized care: Especially helpful for small or weak kids.

• Supplementation advantage: If doe milk isn’t sufficient, it’s easier to supplement kids with whole cow’s milk to prevent stunted growth.

❌ Cons

• Behavior challenges: Bottle babies often grow up overly friendly and may jump, bite, or butt.

• Long-term habits: Without early boundary training, behaviors become problematic later.

• Labor intensive: Feed every 3–5 hours, up to 4–5 times daily.

• Equipment & cleaning: Bottles, nipples, and racks need constant washing.

• More infrastructure: Managing multiple kids may require racks or multiple feeders.

• If dams are not milked properly or often enough, milk production can decrease or stop entirely, affecting both the doe’s health and kid nutrition.

• Feeding mistakes are common: New goat owners often overfeed or underfeed bottle kids—either because the kids act ravenous even after a full bottle, or because rigid feeding charts don’t match the kid’s actual needs. Overfeeding can lead to bloat or scours; underfeeding may cause stunted growth or failure to thrive.

🍼 Lamb Bar System

✅ Pros

• Track growth by weight: Daily weigh-ins help monitor intake even without seeing every feeding.

• Safe, kid-only pens: Same safety benefits as individual bottle-raising.

• Easier daily management: One lamb bar feeds multiple kids.

• Earlier sales: Buyers can continue feeding at home.

• Hands-on care possible: Bond and observe without holding every bottle.

• Fewer pushy behaviors: Kids don’t associate people with feeding time, so are generally less aggressive or clingy.

• Supplementation advantage: When doe milk is low, whole cow’s milk supplementation helps prevent stunted growth in lamb bar-fed kids.

❌ Cons

• Behavioral issues still possible: Same tameness pros and cons as individual bottle babies—manage early!

• Special equipment needed: For your setup and buyers continuing the feeding.

  🐐💡 Lamb Bar Safety Tip: Be careful what you use to clip your lamb bar to the fence. Curious kids can get their mouths stuck trying to open some clips, then jerk back and accidentally “fish hook” themselves, causing injury. We use a locking carabiner to prevent this—it's secure, easy to use, and much safer for little mouths.

• Extra maintenance: Lamb bars must be cleaned daily, and milk can spoil in heat.

• Temperature control required: In warm climates, frozen water bottles may be needed to keep milk cool.

• Illness risk: Dirty lamb bars or overheated milk can cause digestive issues or infections.

• If dams are not milked properly or often enough, milk production can decrease or stop entirely, which impacts kid growth and doe health.

🧪 Our Goat Kid Feeding Experience: Why We Chose the Lamb Bar

Now that we’ve discussed the pros and cons of each method, let’s talk about our own experience, what we’ve learned, and how we plan to raise kids moving forward.

Thanks to Holly’s time on a farm with goats during her childhood, we had already ruled out dam-raising from the start. The risk of dam rejection or kid injury is just too high for our comfort. We also really value the ability to focus on each goat individually—both dam and kid. Being able to put hands on everyone each day, without distractions or interference from the rest of the herd, is important to us. And honestly, we sleep better at night knowing no one’s going to get accidentally squished in the middle of a goat pile.

Since we started building our herd, we’ve used both bottle-feeding and lamb bar feeding systems. While each option comes with its own quirks and learning curve, we found lamb bar babies to be superior in almost every way.

🍼 Year One: Bottle Feeding and Hard Lessons

In our first year, we raised our kids on bottles and followed a standard feeding chart for how often and how much to feed. That led to under-sized kids who took much longer to reach their full potential. They also came to see us as the food source—which made them incredibly pushy. Feeding four bottle babies with only two arms felt like a juggling act Holly would rather not repeat.

Cleaning bottles took a ton of time. And while one big benefit was getting to buy the kids younger and start working on manners early, we found that bottle-feeding took so much time and energy that we often didn’t get around to training like we planned. Picking up feet and leading were battles we ended up having after they were much bigger and stronger.

We also had to learn how to correct some of the more obnoxious behaviors bottle babies tend to develop—like biting, pawing, and head-butting. A few discipline techniques we’ve had success with:

• Pinching ears (a gentle mimic of how a doe might correct them)

• Squirting with a water bottle

• Flipping them gently onto their side and holding them still until they stop struggling (make sure the area is clear of hazards if you try this one)

🍼 Year Two: Why the Lamb Bar System Worked Better

The next year, we brought in four more kids—two bucklings and two doelings—already started on a lamb bar system. After a little spin-up time to get comfortable with it, the difference was night and day.

We set up two kid-only pens and used a single lamb bar with just morning and evening top-ups. For the first few weeks, we only had to wash it once daily before the morning feed. Compared to constant bottle washing, it felt like a breeze.

As we moved into weaning, though, we hit a snag. Because we were reducing the total volume of milk available, the kids were drinking less frequently throughout the day. That meant the milk was no longer regularly flushing the lamb bar tubes and nipples. The leftover milk residue in those parts started growing bacteria—and we didn’t realize it until one of our doelings developed scours.

We initially tried cooling the milk by adding a frozen water bottle, which had worked well during full feedings. But with smaller weaning amounts, the milk wasn't sitting in the bucket long enough—or flowing often enough—to keep the tubing clean and cool. It wasn’t the bucket milk going bad, it was the milk residue in the tubes causing the problem.

We fixed it by:

• Removing the lamb bar midday after the kids finished their portion

• Replacing it in the evening with a freshly cleaned and filled bucket

• Giving electrolytes and probiotics to the affected doeling

That solved the issue, and we called it another lesson learned.

Overall, we were really pleased with the lamb bar setup. Our kids this year are growing faster, healthier, and with more balanced behavior than the bottle-raised group from year one.

🔍 Bottle Feeding vs. Lamb Bar: What We Learned Raising Goat Kids

• 🧽 Less cleaning overall: One lamb bar vs. four bottles is no contest.

• 🐐 Better behavior: Lamb bar kids were less pushy and easier to handle.

• 💪 Stronger growth: Kids reached target weights faster with fewer setbacks.

• 💩 Coccidia management: No noticeable difference between the two systems.

• ☀️ Temperature is critical: In warm weather, use a frozen water bottle to help cool milk.

• 🧼 Watch for residue during weaning: Less milk = less flushing. Clean tubing and remove the lamb bar midday if milk is sitting too long.

• 🧊 Keep it clean and shaded: Always place the lamb bar out of the sun and sanitize before each new feeding.

🧭 Every Farm, Every Season Is Different

At the end of the day, there's no one-size-fits-all answer—just what works best for your setup, your does and kids, and your own peace of mind. For us, choosing bottle-raising with a lamb bar gave us the hands-on care we wanted and the flexibility we needed. But your farm might have different priorities.

Whether you’re facing winter kidding in a small shelter, managing a full-time job alongside farm chores, or simply trying to raise polite, healthy goats—what matters most is that your choice works for you.

Take the time to experiment, ask questions, and adjust as you go. And don’t be afraid to change course if something isn’t working. That’s how you (and your goats!) grow.