Feeding/bonding issue

I have a doe that kidded 2 days ago with 2 large does.  Sadly one died.  Mama is super attentive to her remaining kid, over attentive, constantly licking.  But Mama will not stand for her kid to eat.  The kid is weak and not aggressive, still can't seem to find the teat and figure it out and we are on day 3.  Yesterday morning, the kid was weak and cold and limp so I took her inside the house and fed her colostrum 1 cc a at a time, also Nutri drench.  She pick up up a little but by end of day was still weak.  The vet came and put a feeding tube down into her stomach and got 90cc of milk into her, she perked up immediately.  But today mama is still not standing to allow feeding.

Anyone have any thoughts on what is going on?  Mama has freshened last year for the first time with 2, was the model attentive mom.  And she is still a good mom and has not rejected baby.  In fact while I had the doe in the house she spent the entire day crying and pacing the barn.  She stopped for a 2o minute nap only.  Mama is fine with me milking her on the milkstand, and baby will eat some while mama is on the milkstand but I have to shove the teat in her mouth and hold her head in place, almost forcing her to drink.  Her suckling is weak.  So far 2 attempts at using a bottle have only been partially successful, baby doesn't seem to want to drink from the bottle.

The doeling is weak, and I'd rather avoid sticking the tube down the throat to force feed her even though the vet talked me through it.

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  • I'm so glad to hear it all worked out! We had a challenging situation last night. A doeling was born yesterday afternoon at 4:30. Her head came up outside-down, which I have never seen before. But as it was coming out, it spun around to right side up!  After the kid was born she was unable to stand for hours. She also had zero sucking reflex. We were wondering if her unusual entrance into the world affected her spine. I got 1/2 ounce of her mama's colostrum into her after a couple hours, then another 1/2 ounce an hour later. Then my husband got 2 ounces into her by the time she was six hours old. She was 4 pounds, so plenty big! We were really wondering what we find this morning, and to our complete amazement, she was walking around and nursing. And this afternoon, we weighed her, and she's gained 7 ounces since birth less than 24 hours ago! So, we're pretty excited. 

    I totally agree about the tube feeding. Some people act like it's no big deal, but it really is. I've tube fed about a dozen kids, and it still makes me very nervous. In fact, my son asked me last night why I didn't tube feed this one, but it really makes me nervous. It's great that you had a vet show you how to do it. That's ideal.

  • Ah yes, well that was the strangest thing.  We came close to loosing the second kid, but on Day 4 she started sucking from the teat on her own!  Immediately she strengthened and recovered nicely.  Basically it took her 4 days to figure out what they normally figure out in the first 15 minutes after being born.  The vet thinks that maybe there was a development issue, maybe something happened during delivery.  Mama is fine now, very attentive to her kid as per last year.  I do think she was very distressed that she may loose the second kid, she put on quite an impressive show of agitation especially when considering she is normally an extremely calm doe.  Anyway, it is now 1 month later and this kid is now my largest kid (I had 7 born) and also The Mischevious One:-)  Every year there is always one that stands out...  Anyway, it ended up being an OK kidding season - 7 doelings and only one casualty.  Last year I had 6 bucklings and 1 doeling, finding homes took forever.  This year everyone is sold already at 4 weeks and they all have great homes to go to when they are ready to leave.

    I think it is worth mentioning for anyone new to goats that sticking a feeding tube down the throat requires caution.  If the tube correctly goes into the stomach, the kid recovers amazingly fast.  However if you err and the tube goes down the lungs, it can be fatal.  The vet has shown me how to check that the tube is going down the right path, however I am still nervous when called to do this.  I know I am usually not my calm self in these situations, and I guess my confidence in myself is not high when I am not calm!

  • I can't believe I am just now seeing this post! I don't know why Ning isn't sending me notifications. It's been a whole month since this was posted. Can you give us an update, Judy?

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