I had my second goat have kids on Saturday. It was a long day and she was panting heavily since 11:30 AM on Saturday. She finally kidded at 5:15PM. She would cry anytime I left her alone. She was up and down every minute and could not get comfortable. It was her first time having kids. She had 3 does. I was very excited. Last week my other doe had 3 boys. Now I have the Brady Bunch.
The mother is now rejecting one of the kids and won't let it nurse for some reason. I found something on the website that said that the kid could be nursing wrong. Is there any way to correct this? We milked out a little milk from the mother and I gave it to the kid but I was afraid to take too much and leave the other two without milk. I am not sure how much milk she is making and can't take any milk from my other doe as she has three of her own. There is a goat farm down the road that I could get some milk from to continue bottle feed the kid but will the mother reject the kid more??? Will she hurt it if she smells other milk on her breath??? Should I continue to milk the mother a couple of times a day for the first week and then switch. Any suggestions??
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Here is the blog post that I wrote about the kid that wasn't sucking correctly:
http://antiquityoaks.blogspot.com/2008/06/sucking-disorder-in-goat-...
You have to figure out how the kid is nursing. That post shows photos of correct and incorrect. If your little doe is doing the same thing as the one I had -- only nursing on the tip -- you can try using a Pritchard teat, which is very long, so it gets them accustomed to sucking on something that goes farther into their mouth. She really didn't like it at first, but she did get used to it, and after a few days she would nurse like that on her mother.
Knock on wood, I have never had a doe reject a kid after the kid received another doe's milk. If you get milk from another farm though, you might want to pasteurize it until you trust that their does are all CAE-negative.