My FF Molly had quads today! (It was my first time too - phew, it's good to have that over with! :) Two doelings and two bucklings, all variations of black and white and cute as can be. The first three came out one right after another in the diving position, the 4th took a bit longer to make her appearance (maybe 10 minutes after the previous kid) and presented upside down and back feet first - Molly was standing as the kid hung there halfway out for a split second while I was trying to decide if I should pull or not, and then she started wiggling and just dropped out!
I don't have a digital scale so it would be hard to get a good weight on them, but they all look similar in size/weight - no tiny runts. They were all vigorous and up nursing within the hour, and I have seen each of them nurse again a few times since. Molly is still working on passing the placenta tonight (it's been about 6 hours since the last kid was born - should I be worried?), but I have tied it into a couple knots so she can't get at it and pull it out. Molly seems to be a great mom - very calm and attentive.
I am a bit anxious about all these kids getting enough milk. Please share any advice and helpful tips, or things to watch out for, etc.
Thanks :)
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They are precious! CONGRATULATIONS on your doe having quads! Hope everything continues to go smoothly for her. I hope she has a couple babysitters close by! LOL
Yay! Sounds like things are improving! If she had a retained placenta or an infection, she'd be very sick or dead by now, so you are out of the woods. A little discharge for two weeks after delivery is normal.
Awe! Sounds like things are looking up for you all. :) So happy for you!
So, it's been a crazy week, but things are finally settling down around here.
Molly and Dolly were both limping on the left front leg by the end of last week. I told the vet and he assumed it was from the CD&T vacc. They limped around for a few days, and are both now back to walking completely normal.
Molly ended up getting some antibiotics because she was crying out when she urinated a week after freshening, and the vet thought she might have a UTI from the placenta hanging on for a few days. She is no longer crying when she urinates. She is, however, still oozing a kind of thick, pinkish discharge. I'm keeping a close eye on her behavior and temp. and even checking her derriere for odor (I'm sure my neighbors think I'm insane) in case she still has some placenta in there. How will I know when we are finally out of the woods with the retained placenta issue?
Dolly kidded without any problems on the 5th, two doelings that we named Cinco (as she was our 5th kid born and also born on the 5th) and so the next kid obviously had to be deMayo :), and dropped her placenta within a couple of hours. Cinco was army crawling to get to the teat before she could even walk, which blew me away!
The CAE and CL tests came back negative, which I guess is some kind of miracle because I know absolutely nothing about the history of these goats. I was given them by a friend, who got them through various farm/goat trades I guess you could say. So at this point I'm keeping a really good eye on the bumps on Dolly's leg/shoulder, although the vet didn't think they sounded like classic CL abcesses.
So, anyway, that's the news here at Olly farm (it's unofficial, but that's what I call us :), where we are paying out of our noses for vet bills, swimming in kids, and dreaming of the days when we can milk these girls and start enjoying the fruits of all this labor :)
On the question of CL, do you know anything about the history of the goats? Did they originally come from the sale barn, or did they come from a tested herd? If they both came from the same herd, and since CL is pretty contagious, odds are good that if one has it, the other one would also.
Thanks so much for the encouragement and support ladies :)
I did give Molly another shot of oxytocin yesterday around supper time per my vet's request, and this morning the placenta is gone! YAY! I guess I will never know if it was from the oxytocin or not, but I don't really care too much about that - I'm just glad she passed it finally. It was nowhere to be found in the kidding pen, so I guess she ate it, which is pretty gross since it had been hanging there a couple days. I hope it doesn't upset her rumen or anything.
My vet doesn't think Dolly's bumps sound like CL, but we did already send off blood work on Monday, so now I'm just praying we get the CL test results back before she kids, as I would like to bottle raise them if she is CL positive. My vet doesn't sound hopeful the results will be back in time though.
I realize I am doing this all kind of backwards. I was given these goats by a friend and had no idea what I was getting into, and I've just been learning along the way. Mostly from this forum and also Deb's amazing book. So, again, thank you all, from me and my little herd :)
Deborah, I did notice that. :) Wouldn't it be awesome if one of us could actually be there when something hard is going on saying, "You can do this!" :) I feel like I could really use that sometimes. This is the next best thing though. :)
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
Placentas do usually only take about 3 hours or so, but even if they don't, it's supposedly not a big deal. I've only had one placenta in a goat that took more than six hours, and I think it was a couple of days. The vet that I spoke to at U of I had a lot of cow experience, and she said that some cows don't lose their placenta until they come into heat three weeks after calving, so she was totally not at all worried about my doe. She suggested that I put a plastic bag over the placenta (keep flies away) and tie the whole thing in a knot so that the doe was not dragging it around the ground. She was quite adamant that using oxytocin injections almost never worked, and it was a waste of time and energy to even use them -- especially a single dose. The only time they did work, in her experience, is if it was given soon after the birth. She also said that failure to lose the placenta quickly meant a failure in the immune response of the animal, which is why oxytocin doesn't work. Supposedly the body rejects the placenta as a foreign object after the kids are born -- assuming the immune system is in good shape.
Many years ago I had a ewe with a retained placenta. It took her a week to pass it, but she was fine, and went on to have lambs every year after that.
CL abscesses are typically over lymph nodes, and your description doesn't sound like these bumps are anywhere near lymph nodes. The ONLY way to know if it is CL is to drain one and send it to a lab, so please do not get freaked out if your vet says anything about whether it is or could be CL. Only a lab can give you a diagnosis on that. It could be something as boring as a spider bite.
LOL, Patty! I think it's pretty cool that we both said, "You can do it!"
I took out a bowl of warm water with a wash cloth and held it against her udder and expressed some milk and massaged it while the kids ate, and it is noticeably better.
And the bumps with scabbed tops on the other doe can't be from injections because she's only ever had the one shot she got yesterday, but there are 3 or 4 small bumps there. I hope and pray it's not CL. Or at least I get the CL results back before her babies arrive so I know to bottle feed them. I'm going to see what my vet thinks when I am out there now.
Randi, can you take a pic of the remaining placenta? I am wondering if it's the whole thing, or part of it that you're seeing? Does are very goopy on the hind end for a few days after they kid. I'm just wondering if that's what you're seeing?
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