This April one of our does gave birth to 3 kids. 2 bucks and 1 doe. The doe died at 4 weeks. She was weak, didn't gain any weight (3 pounds at most) and just not thriving period. The bucks are now 6 weeks and are just not, in our opinion, quite right. They are slow, will stand in the same position for quite awhile chewing their cud. Have a glazed look on their face. I know that they are getting milk from the mom. They have started drinking water and eating hay. However, they just don't do much. We checked the eye lids and they are pink. Temps are fine. Started seeing clumpy poops as of yesterday. Yes, we know that for the most part they might have worms. Our vet told us that they don't treat babies for worms and they need to build up their own resistance. Any thoughts on this? My daughter found an article that said to treat them for worms but wouldn't give the kind of dewormer or the dosage. We use currently Molly's for every day natural dewormer and try to stay away from chemical but do use privermectin when necessary. We have given a dose of nutri-drench with no change. Could Pro-bios prove to be any help in this situation? Any help on this would be much appreciated.
Laura Milko
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I know it's really hard to get milk into them when they're used to nursing. We had a doe die several years ago whose triplets were 5 weeks old, and it took about 5-7 days to get all three of them to understand that we really were not trying to murder them. What I find really weird is that I have never had a lamb that did not take to a bottle instantly. I don't know why goats take so long to decide a bottle is okay.
It's great to have another engineer collecting data! :)
Well this morning we forced another couple of ounces into them. They screamed, we got soaked and that was that. We are going to buy a better scale so we can weigh them all the time as well. My husband is an engineer as well and said "weigh them!" We will continue this and feed the doe grain while keeping her as calm as we can. Thanks for all your intel on this.
Laura and Sophia
She is producing milk. Otherwise her kids would be dead already. She is not producing enough though. Kids need a minimum of 16 ounces per day to survive. The more they get, the faster they grow, and they do really well on 32 ounces a day. When looking at years of milk test results, you can see that most first fresheners do not produce enough to feed more than two kids really well. If you have some excellent genetics, they might be able to produce enough for three kids to survive or do moderately well. So it would be interesting to see how much milk she is producing in 12 hours.
I did not understand the nitty gritty of this until my husband starting helping after our daughters left home. He was a complete newbie and had only listened to us girls talking about the goats forever, but he had done zero hands on. Then five years ago I injured my knee and was stuck in bed for a month. He is not an animal person and had a terrible time figuring out if kids were nursing and if they were getting enough. He's an engineer, so his answer was to start weighing the kids daily. That's where I got all of this data. For two years now I've been meaning to write up all of this in a concise article because there are a lot of underfed kids out there -- and some of them were even on this farm years ago. But my husband just keeps weighing kids, so the data just keeps growing, which is a good thing.
Sorry for the delay. One of my 8 week old does decided to rip the tip of her ear off! never ends...
1. Peek-a-boo had 3 babies and we were present for this and no they were not born in a pile of poop but on towels/puppy pads. She is 2 years old. Not sure of weight but she is short but stocky. Did not have any trouble delivering except short delays in each delivery. I have never had a first freshener not be able to feed their kids before so I am new to this info. I have also been keeping their bedding extremely clean. Hay has been an issue here as last year and it looks like this year its just too wet to hay the fields. A lot of it is being brought in from NY and we are paying an arm and a leg to get it. I was lucky enough to get a supplier for the winter but its not that great so Peek-a-boo has been fussy on top of everything else going on. As for her vomiting/foaming at mouth and spitting up grain: She came that way. I am aware of the fact that goats don't vomit unless they have ingested something poisonous. She has us stumped. We started her on grain last night and she didn't vomit and we gave her grain this morning as well with no issues. We put red raspberry leaves in the feed to slow her and our other first freshener down. It seems to really work. I had a suggestion from a good friend (Bee Fruitful Acres) that I might consider separation tonight so I can see if she is bagging up and producing milk. Yes I did try to bottle feed last night and you might have thought I was murdering them. Got about 2 ounces into each of them. Going to keep it up today and going forward. We are using the milk from our other milking doe to supplement them. I do have access to raw cows milk as well. I hate milk replacer as it caused diarrhea in a kid from last season. Peek-a-boo is a very timid goat. It took quite a while to have her adjust to our homestead. We are taking everything extremely slow for her so we have not like I said earlier taken her kids away overnight to get first milk and adjust her to the milking stand. We tried once to do her hooves and gave her grain to occupy her and that was our first introduction to her vomiting/spitting up her grain. I hope I have given you more info to go on. My daughter spend a good amount of time researching this to no avail.
The kids are starving. Six-week-old NDs should weigh about 13 to 16 pounds. The average weight gain should be about 4 ounces per day, and most kids double their birth weight within two weeks and then triple it by a month to six weeks.
It is very rare that a first freshener can make enough milk to feed more than two kids, and it is a very rare doe that could produce a lot of milk without a good quality goat grain with 16% protein. Trying to go grain-free was one of the mistakes that I made in the early years of goat keeping.
It is possible that the sister died of starvation and/or coccidiosis. If it were coccidiosis, she would have had to have been infected with coccidia the day she was born, which does not happen unless the doe gives birth in a pile of poop. That has happened here twice when we did not expect a doe to kid, so it can happen, but it is incredibly rare. If kids don't get enough milk, that means they are not getting enough antibodies to help them fight the coccidia that is inevitably in their system as they grow and start exploring their world and picking up straw that's been in contact with goat berries. Even if they spit out the straw, they've been exposed to the coccidia. Kids have extremely immature immune systems, so it is really important for them to get enough milk.
The boys need supplemental milk or milk replacer, which will not be an easy task at their age. Once in a blue moon a kid will realize they are starving in that situation and take to a bottle like a duck to water, but most of them time they scream and fight like you're trying to poison them simply because they have never had a bottle.
Here is more info on bottle feeding: https://thriftyhomesteader.com/bottle-feeding-goat-kids/
Can you explain what you mean by the doe throwing up when she eats grain? How many times did it happen? It is so rare for goats to throw up that most sources say they don't. Usually about the only time it happens if they have consumed something poisonous, and even then it doesn't always happen. Lots of goats are grain hogs who don't bother chewing, but that's an advantage of being a ruminant. They get a second chance to chew.
How old is the doe? How much does she weigh?
Hi Deborah
Thanks for the reply. A little back history on the Doe. She is a first freshener and she is only on hay at moment except once a week for the natural dewormer added to some feed. The feed is alfalfa/timothy, boss, kelp, minerals, and hay stretcher which we mix together. You may ask why only once a week that we feed her. This is because she is a challenge to feed. She likes to inhale her food and ends up throwing up. Now for info on the two bucks. They weight 5.1 and 6 pounds and are 6 weeks. Their mom is small and the dad is small as well so we expected small kids. We see them milking during the day and we have not separated them from her yet to attempt morning milk as we usually do at 4 weeks. They are not on pasture. We moved them from a pen with grass because it was thought that this might be the problem. They are acting normal just slowwwwww. They don't run around and play like the other kids. They just like to stand with their mom and chew their cud and watch the sky. We did loose their sister at 3 weeks. We suspect coccidiosis as she had running poops and a low body temp and we started an antibiotic just too late. These boys are not showing those signs except for we believe one has the clumpy poops.
Is it possible that they are simply not getting enough milk. How much do the kids weigh? Is the mom a first freshener? If not, how much milk did she produce in her last lactation?
It is really rare to see worms in kids, but if the kids are not getting enough milk, coccidiosis can strike anytime after 3 weeks, which is how long the coccidia takes to go through its life cycle.
Are the kids on pasture? If yes, how tall is the grass?
What are you feeding the doe?
Please no more NutriDrench. That's just pure sugar and does terrible things to their blood sugar. It's like you eating a spoonful of sugar. Might give you some energy but won't cure anything. This is complex, and a single remedy like Probios is not going to help.