If the weather be
fair, with bright sunshiny days and temperate nights, the kids will do
well without much care, but if it be cold, stormy and muddy, some of the
kids will be lost in spite of all care. After the kids are born the
mothers should have such food as will produce the greatest amount of
milk. Well-fed mothers make strong healthy kids. Green feed is
desirable.

The proper season, then, for the kids to come will depend upon the
climate and range conditions. Allowing for the period of gestation,
which is about five months, the bucks can run with the does as early or
as late as one wishes. One can be guided somewhat by the time sheep men
allow ewes to lamb. When the first warm weather comes the goats usually
commence to shed their mohair, and as it is too early in the season for
the kids to be dropped, the does must be shorn before kidding or the
mohair lost. Care should be exercised in handling the does heavy with
kid. For the first few days after shearing the doe should not be allowed
to chill, as she may abort. In some countries it is possible to kid
before shearing, but there is no practical objection to shearing before
kidding, provided proper care be exercised.

HANDLING OF KIDS.

There are various methods in use of handling the young kids, and all of
them are intended to save as large a percentage of increase as possible
with the least possible expense. Almost every man who has handled goats
has some individual idea which experience has taught him. The locality
and surroundings of the flock make a vast difference in the way they
should be kidded. The method which works best with fifty or one hundred
does in a fenced brush pasture in Oregon or Iowa, would be useless with
a flock of a thousand or fifteen hundred in the mountains of Nevada or
New Mexico, where there is often no corral to hold the goats.

With a bunch of from fifty, to two hundred and fifty, and a shed big
enough to hold the entire lot, it is not difficult to raise a very large
percentage of kids. If the does are kept in a ten or twenty-acre
pasture, they should be allowed to run out and take care of themselves
as much as possible. The doe may drop her kid wherever she may happen to
be, and she will almost invariably take care of it and coax it to the
shed at night. The refusal of a young doe to own her kid must be
overcome, especially if the weather is unfavorable. The mother must be
caught and the milk forced into the kid's mouth unti