I'm an advocate of mama raising too. So much so that in 25 years of doing this I have NEVER pulled a baby just so I could bottle feed it...yikes...too much work! And, I've never sold one just to get rid of him early. But, there are exceptions to every rule... Last year I did have bottle babies when mom kidded and didn't have enough milk. I supplemented them but never pulled them from their mom. She gave 'em what she could, and I gave 'em the rest. I did end up selling them at about a month old when I sold a whole bunch of other goats at the same time. Gotta say that I'm really not looking forward to the next 10 weeks or so... not so fond of bottle raising. But, there are occasions when it does make sense.
These folks sell their bucklings, to give their doelings a better start (they have mama all to their selves). However, in the Kiko world (which I'm barely a fledgling) one of the big bragging points is 'does that kid unassisted and need no help raising their kids.' This seems to fly in the face of that theory. I also wanted to disbud this baby and in order to do that I needed to own him. And, there's no doubt that bottle babies are very easy to handle as adults. This will be a large buck and I'm ok with him being super easy to deal with when he's grown.
He wasn't tooo keen on the bottle last night but took an ounce or so. This morning he did much better. I haven't seen him poop since he's been here even though I see evidence of meconium on his legs so he's at least passed that. I'll be watching for milk poop to start coming through now that he's had a good breakfast. I'll have him on a 5 hour schedule for the next couple of weeks at least - but no feedings in the middle of the night. It'll be 7am, noon, 5pm, and 10pm. But, we'll be flexible - if he's hungry after 4 hours I'll probably give in, lol.
Yep, he's inside. The little fella is in the breezeway for now. We have a wire pen in there and lots of puppy pads! It's temperate, not muddy, I can heat or cool as necessary, and it's close! Once I'm sure he's thriving, and the weather is cooperative, and maybe when he's down to 3 a day feedings, I'll move him out to the front barn. It's just too nasty out there now to plop a newborn into the mess.
His dad is stunning too… Hope everything will go well with the raising of the little one. I must say I'm with Bay on letting moms take care of the little ones.
I'd like to do better but when you have to be to work at an outside job -- yeah, that sometimes gets in the way! In fact, I have one doe who is still letting her year old doeling nurse!!!!
So that should be a "well started" doeling, right? 
Geesh.
