January 20th Polly gave birth to a beautiful black and white buckling without warning. By the time we found him he was dead. I assume that he was born dead but wasn't actually out there when he was born. Last night she gave birth to another buckling and altho we confirmed that she has milk she is very infifferent to poor baby and won't let him nurse from what we can see. Last night one side of her udder was definitely a bit smaller than the other but that's the only indication that perhaps he had nursed.. We penned them up together and she isn't out to kill him or anything but she butts him away from her food and whenever I saw him get close to nursing she'd move and he'd loose interest and nibble on some hay or lay down for a nap. Hubby is going to town to get milk replacer. I thought I'd feed him a bottle and then put him back in with mom. We've seen baby pee and poop so that's a good thing but didn't know how worried I needed to be or what I needed to do to get her to let him nurse. She's just a yearling is that why the issue?
I have another doe, a second freshener, that I'm expecting to kid in the next 24 hrs and she has been very concerned about this baby and acts like she's be more than happy to adopt him. I don't want to jeopardize the new arrivals tho either. Any input or advice?
Turns out you were right! Lol I was really confused there for a while. Since then I've had another Nigerian Kid and a mini mancha and I got buck and doe twins out of the Nigi doe and a doe from the mini mancha!! I have a mini Nubian due to kid sometime shortly but don't know exactly when.
Are you saying that she had two kids 10 days apart, and the second one was alive? I have never heard of that, and although I hate to say that anything is impossible, I'd think that the other dead kid belonged to a different doe -- or this kid belongs to the doe that you think is due to kid now. I made a similar mistake the first year we had kids. Were you at both of these births? When a doe goes into labor, the placenta generally separates within 12 hours or so, so theoretically, there is no way she could give birth to two kids 10 days apart. Did you start milking her after she kidded the first time?
If she had not let the kid nurse, both sides of her udder would still be big and huge, and the kid would be dead by now. He also would not be peeing and pooping, so she has let him nurse at least some, and perhaps he is nursing from doe #2. How much time have you spent with them? It sounds like this kid might belong to doe #2.
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Are you saying that she had two kids 10 days apart, and the second one was alive? I have never heard of that, and although I hate to say that anything is impossible, I'd think that the other dead kid belonged to a different doe -- or this kid belongs to the doe that you think is due to kid now. I made a similar mistake the first year we had kids. Were you at both of these births? When a doe goes into labor, the placenta generally separates within 12 hours or so, so theoretically, there is no way she could give birth to two kids 10 days apart. Did you start milking her after she kidded the first time?
If she had not let the kid nurse, both sides of her udder would still be big and huge, and the kid would be dead by now. He also would not be peeing and pooping, so she has let him nurse at least some, and perhaps he is nursing from doe #2. How much time have you spent with them? It sounds like this kid might belong to doe #2.