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Looking online gets me a little anxious and nervous about making sure my goats stay alive, I got two alpine babies a few days ago, one is 7 days old today and the other 14 days old. I am very new to this and have done hours of research but found this forum today and figured I’d ask other people in the pack goat community. What I’m looking for is maybe a list of do’s and dont’s, vaccine information, and anything else that you might find helpful to me. Thanks in advance
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Hello and welcome to the forums! It's easy to get overly nervous the first time around. (Been there!) If your babies look and act healthy and happy then you are probably doing ok. I assume they are bottle kids? Bottle kids are usually a bit trickier than dam-raised and it's hard not to get overwhelmed with all the info out there. Do you have a goat mentor you're working with? Hopefully the person you bought the goats from has given you some sound and helpful information about how much to feed, feeding schedule, etc. I usually try to vaccinate my kids at 6-8 weeks and then give boosters 3-4 weeks later. I give CD+T vaccines but not any others. Your babies will start wanting to chew on hay within a couple of weeks, so it's best to have some out for them by that time even if they don't really eat it for a while. It's ok if they appear to eat a lot of dirt. This is how they populate their gut with the bacteria they need to start ruminating. Make sure to cuddle with them a lot and play with them, but don't encourage them to head-butt. Bottle babies bond to humans quite naturally so you shouldn't have any trouble with that.
Please let us know if you have any particular questions or run into any problems!
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