After nine years and more than 100 does kidding, we had our first c-section a couple of days ago. I wrote about the process on my blog:
http://antiquityoaks.blogspot.com/2011/02/our-first-c-section.html
Several people have asked me questions though, which I thought some of you might like to also know about.
One of the students at the vet hospital asked me how I knew something was wrong. Normally, once a goat is in screaming-hard labor and pushing, the contractions are coming close together, and you see progress, and you have kids within a couple hours. Caboose was having contractions 15 or 20 minutes apart, and nothing was happening after several hours. Then she started to look tired and instead of screaming, she would sometimes sound wimpy.
Another person asked for details on how to manually dilate the cervix. It is exactly as it sounds. You put your fingers inside the cervix and very gently massage it, trying to open it. You have to use lots of lube and be very gentle so you don't tear it. The vet had said it would take 15-30 minutes; my breeder friend said it could even take as long as 45 minutes, which is why I didn't give up very quickly. Also, it seemed like I would be making progress until I needed to add more lube, and as soon as I'd take my hand out to add more lube and put my hand back in there, the cervix was closed up again. The other "trick" the breeder told me about was to use lutalyse on my glove -- do NOT put it on your skin, and she even said that she wouldn't let a young woman of child bearing age use it, just in case the glove breaks. She'd be worried about it possibly messing with menstrual cycles and who knows what.
I hope everyone find this helpful. But don't get all paranoid now! I am personally having that problem myself as we had three more does kid yesterday, and I have three more due to kid any minute.
Deborah
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