When to worry about nursing?

Velvet just had twins that are now approaching 2 hrs old.  They are not latching on and nursing well.  I helped the boy get a good suckle but he has not on his own. Girl does not want to be helped thank you very much, but I believe I saw her get a little on her own.  Mostly they are mouthing the bag & nowhere near the teats.  Velvet's teats are pretty big- she's a mini mancha and these kids are by a nigerian buck so they aren't maybe that big compared to her. 

 

Am I worrying unnecessarily again??  :)

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  • I have to jump in as a relative newbie- I think good to watch the doeling. My queen clearly preferred her buckling to her doeling and allowed him to drink more. The doeling grew fine but if I had babies in this horrible cold weather- I'd also feel more comfortable seeing comparatively equal feedings. With my queen- I sold the wether and kept the doeling- minute boy was gone- queen refused to nurse the doeling. Problem happened with new owner and she brought back wether for a few days and queen went right back to nursing both but again- nothing for daughter once boy went for good! Weird goats sometimes!
  • thank you so much for the reassurance!!

    we are learning so much from the friendly folks on this terrific website!!!

    Julia @Woody Glen Farm said:

    Izzy, when they are little they nurse often and for very brief amounts of time. As they get older they will nurse for longer. Your doe knows when they need to stop so she walks away (this is my understanding) because they can only digest a small amount at a time when they are very young. If the little doeling starts acting depressed, hunched up, or standing away from the others, she may not be getting enough but it's unlikely with twins especially since you've seen her nursing. If she's jumping and playing you can stop worrying now ;) 

    Unbelievably cute kids.rtfd.zip

  • Izzy, when they are little they nurse often and for very brief amounts of time. As they get older they will nurse for longer. Your doe knows when they need to stop so she walks away (this is my understanding) because they can only digest a small amount at a time when they are very young. If the little doeling starts acting depressed, hunched up, or standing away from the others, she may not be getting enough but it's unlikely with twins especially since you've seen her nursing. If she's jumping and playing you can stop worrying now ;) 

  • We have two kids -- the little boy is nursing well.  The little girl seems to 'strike' at the nipple and have trouble nursing; then when she gets onto a teat, mom often walks away within 1 minute.  I am really worried that she is not getting enough milk.  However, she behaves healthily, jumping around and playing with her brother.  They re 10days old now.    We are newbies, these are the first kids, and mom is a FF.  Fortunately, she has been doing terrific BUT I wish she would let the little girl nurse as long as she lets the little boy nurse.....

    Any advice? 

    Do I need to milk mom and then bottle feed the little girl to get her more nourishment?

  • Well I am happy to report that I FINALLY saw the girl take a good hearty suckle on mom, so that combined with her peeing this morning when I first got there means she had nursed before I arrived, I just had bad timing.  All things considered I think I will back off and leave them be now.

     

    It is hard for me to figure out what the right balance of helping is, because my husband thinks I am certifiably rediculous.  If it were up to him, they would all live in the pasture 24/7 (I lock them up at night because we have no guarding animal) and kid on their own.  If they were cows, that would bascially be fine with me.  All though if they were tame cows I'd still want to keep an eye on birthing lol.

     

    At any rate...I am glad I did what needed to be done and it wasn't too much.  She was the only girl we got from this year and my LONG awaited Miyagi daughter so it would be doubly devastating if anything happened to her.  btw she had a nice yellow milk poop too which is good, right?  More evidence that she was feeding herself in secret?

     

    I know what you mean about the birds... we managed about 1 yr before the predators found my chickens and then it was like fish in a barrel.  My best broody hen is sitting on a clutch now, but both of her last two were decimated.  The first one all of her eggs were stolen right out from under her at 15 days and I had just candled them and they were all growing.  Second one she hatched 10 out of 12 eggs, lost every single one except for one who is now our new flock roo.  Now she's on a clutch in an excellent snake and rat proof cage so I hope hope hope these will make it to adulthood, or at least most of them.

     

    I know people in this area who have similar experiences once a predator finds their goat kids and they just get wiped out.  They tried to do an experiment right here in Ft Myers using goats to control the invasive pepper trees but they had to cancel the experiment because all the goats were killed and eaten inside a 5' fence, and those were adults.

    I am all set with breeding ND's to feed the local panther population, thank you very much!!  We haven't lost a goat yet (knocking loudly on wood) to a predator, but I've lost lots of chickens and even that was sad.  I'd still personally rather deal with the predators than keep them locked up & not let them free range.  The adults do pretty well with a good roo and I don't let the babies out till they are about a month old.

  • Kids usually pee within about 15 minutes after nursing, so if you saw her pee, she probably nursed just before you got out there. (If they don't pee within 15-30 minutes of nursing, it generally means they're dehydrated and playing catch-up.)

    When it comes to making sure kids are fed, don't worry about being over-protective. The thing about nature and letting nature takes its course is that nature is very wasteful. In a natural world, the only thing a doe has to do to continue to species is to replace herself, which means she only needs to successfully raise one doeling to adulthood! (And every now and then, a buck has to make it to the age of reproduction, so he can impregnate does.) I came to this realization with our guinea fowl, which actually became extinct on our farm, because even with hatching 20 keets per bird, they STILL couldn't manage to raise one to the age of reproduction each year. Some people theorize that the reason NDs have so many kids compared to Swiss breeds is because Africa is such a harsh environment, and in addition to replacing themselves, a doe also has to produce a few extra kids for feeding lions.

    I was just speaking at a conference yesterday, and in an urban homesteading talk, a woman said aquaponics wasn't "natural." I pointed out that nothing we do is "natural" in the true sense of the word -- unless you are foraging. Most of us are mimicking nature -- we choose to use natural means to mimic nature (like mixing plants and fish in an aquaponic system to avoid chemical fertilizers). Others choose chemical and pharmaceutical means to control plants and animals. I originally thought I could just plant seeds, come back six months later, and harvest dinner. Obviously it doesn't work that way. We can weed, mulch, compost, etc, to mimic nature, or we can use all sorts of chemicals. The same is true of animal husbandry. We can be at a birth to watchfully wait, towel off kids, and make sure they start nursing -- sort of like a lifeguard at the beach who makes sure everyone stays safe. It is vastly different from someone who induces goats so that they won't give birth while she's at work, routinely pulls kids, and bottlefeeds all of them.

  • Okay here's the deal: this morning both kids looked bright and playful.  Saw the girl pee.  Boy is nursing great.  Never saw the girl nurse and I was down there awhile. 

     

    If she is bright & peeing she must have nursed overnight, right? 

  • Deborah at a guess it was 80 degrees when these kids were born yesterday.  I didn't even feel like I had to urgently help her dry them off it was so warm.  Overnight low last night I think was going to be sixty.  To yeah, temp was not a concern for us.

     

    However, now that I read your post I am kicking myself because I let hubby convince me not to go give her another bottle last night and now the six hour window is closed.  I really hope what she got in the afternoon was enough.  When I put the nipple in the boys mouth he suckled great, girl did not.  I know she got some milk anyway because even the amount that she was moving her mouth was letting milk out and it was not spilling out of her mouth, so I do believe she swallowed quite a bit, and after I bottle fed her she did get the mojo to go and latch on to mom at least for a minute.  She seemed to be suckling fine on mom so maybe she was just mad at me for shoving a plastic nipple in her mouth :)

     

    I am glad I didn't over react, I kept thinking about our whole "too hands on" discussion and was really hoping I wasn't interfering for no reason but they really did seem at a loss with Velvet's big teats.

     

    I hope the girl is okay since I didn't bottle feed her again last night, I'm gonna run down there now and check on her!

  • I have not yet posted about our experience here with kidding (3 doelings) 4 days ago.  Firstborn was frank breech and needed assistance for birth to occur.  All 3 kids were well-taken care of by the doe and they were toweled off to assist in getting them quickly dried.  A little swipe of membrane to the teats was done as an attractant for the kids. 

    That firstborn kid had no interest in searching for teat.  She was not as strong as the other two. Her suck (on my finger) was poor and she only did it when I stimulated her along the palate. She felt dry as/warm as the other two, but after a while, I placed her inside my jacket for a really good warming (30+ minutes) and she also gained a good rest.  Next, I provided her about a half teaspoon of molasses-water for some immediate energy (we were a little over 2hrs postbirth).  She was then stronger and had success nursing, but it took many tries AND keeping milk dripping out to get her interested in latching onto the teat.

     In hindsight, I wish I had put a little colostrum in her instead of molasses-water!  

    Her latch was good after that- and we sure got to see her do a lot of it.  She nursed with 2-4 sucks and a let- go of the teat.  She then stands there a while and then latches and sucks 2-4 times...repeating this 4 times per feed.  Sigh!  Ok, this one we have to watch I told my son.    But she's done very well (except at one point which I will get to).  She does nurse a lot more often than the other two!   

    The one exception occurred her first night.  The kids were 13 hrs. old when I went out to check on them at 1:am.  She was not with the other kids, nor with doe, but lying by herself.  She was tucked into the jacket again- brought into the house and fed a half tsp of molasses-water  -  taken back out and she nursed.  Then she spent the rest of the night on my chest, tucked in my jacket as we slept on the recliner, of course we took more feed-trips back out to mom before morn.  She has been fine since then.  She has the ability now to nurse longer at one feed.  

    I don't think I have mentioned....but we do not provide a heat lamp as there isn't really a safe way to have one under our circumstances.  They have a dog bed on which we  place two 'therma packs' beneath a bath towel.  The therma packs have a ceramic material enclosed in a heavy mil plastic sleeve which is heated in a microwave and slid into a fleece pouch.  The packs stay warm for 6 hrs.  When it's been pretty cold (since kidding we've had nightime temps of 25, 27 degrees F) I re-warm the packs every 4 hrs.  (its a chore ; )    I'm ready to go do that task right now.  

    Sandra Hess

    Heartland Midwifery

    Fresno, Ohio

  • Wanted to add (for any lurkers who might be reading this post at some point) that Sandra's point about making sure they're warm is important. I know you're in Florida, Juliana, so this may not have been an issue with your kids at all, but one of the earliest symptoms of hypothermia is no sucking reflex. Yet another reason I worry about my kids born in winter!

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