Bottle Babies No More?

Hard-to-feed babies are sort of my specialty...As a neonatal nurse for twenty-some years and a mother of premature twins, I can humbly say that I can coax or cajole almost any baby into taking a bottle. A four-pound preemie, a newborn with a bad heart and a weak suck, an infant who's been tube-fed for months and needs to learn to eat - I relish the challenge. Teaching our new little goats to take bottles last spring was an incredibly difficult task and a huge accomplishment, but bottle-feeding has since been one of the greatest rewards of our goat experience.

The fact that Em and Ellie, at nearly two years old, have suddenly decided to refuse their bottles, is making me crazy!

I know, I know...why on earth are two full-grown, seventy-five pound goats still taking bottles?? According to the manuals, goats should be weaned by eight weeks old, and my goats are now roughly eighty-six weeks old (had to do a few calculations there - see, Megan, there is a purpose for knowing basic math skills!). We kept meaning to stop, and we did cut down to one bottle a day, and only warm water, but it just never seemed like the right time.

There are practical reasons to bottle, of course - all that fluid flushes out the kidneys and helps prevent urinary calculi, plus Emerson's medicine gets dissolved in his bottle. Warm water aids in the digestive process as well. Truly, though, the reason I still bottle the boys is for those precious moments of morning bonding, for the blissful look on Emerson's face as his eyes go closed and he leans against me, for how Elliot chugs his bottle with such enthusiasm. It is our time to snuggle close, to forget about sharp needles and crusty skin sores and bleeding feet.

The past week has suddenly been a bottle struggle. I've done nothing differently, yet they both turn away and refuse. I am not giving up yet - this morning I got half a bottle into Em by pinning him between my knees and prying his mouth open. Elliot is stronger and harder to catch, although if I can force the bottle in his mouth he will usually suck it right down. Maybe it's time, but I'll keep trying a few more days. If you've ever bottle-fed a goat, you would understand.