Since the cam address for MareStare.com was posted, I have watched several kiddings (and one foaling that almost went terribly wrong). One farm seems to be way too "hands-on" with the kidding, actually removing the kids immediately and cleaning them off before even letting mom sniff them. Certainly having only had one kid here and all going well with me letting mom do everything since she knew far more than me and was doing an excellent job, I know next to nothing. However, it looks to me like they are doing too much.
With kidding just a few weeks away, I am asking if it is better to literally take the kids from mom the second they are born and clean them up or is it better to let her do it (as long as she can keep up and is not in trouble)?
Second question is about the pads. Some farms are using "delivery pads" with the does, maybe so there is less cleanup to do, but it seems that they are distracting the does. Do you use them and why and why not? Honestly, that is one thing I had not considered in my naiveness.
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Congrats on the kids. Glad all went well. I assume from your other post that these are the mini manchas you are talking about? How many purebred ND does have you had to kid? I have a bunch of ND FFs coming up and I am a nervous wreck about them because they are so tiny!
Traumatic birth yes, as in when i was pushing the kid back in as the vet recommended.
Had more kids, no problems. Went out yesterday and they were there, cleaned, walking, and stalking mom. all doing well in spite of 25 degree weather and 5 inches of snow
Jamie- I thought that earlier in this thread you had said that the blindness was due to trauma at birth?
Deborah in a minor plug for untrained vets- the vet I used does large & small. We are in a big ranching community so I know they do cattle. But they have said things to me that let me know they are ignorant about some things. However, despite this they have heroically and quite competently saved the day more than once for me
And finally, from my own experience with Truffle & remembering things that have been said on here: we called the vet pretty quickly on Truffle because it was apparent to us that those feet were huge, the birth was not progressing, the doe was obviously in real distress. Vet gave us some instructions to try and help her ourselves ( was supposed to go in and find the head, but the legs were wedged in there so tightly I couldn't have fit my pinky finger by them, it was totally a no go). Vet said if she has not made real progress in 30 mins max, bring her in.
My situation was very preventable had I been involved with goats longer-1) keep the bucks far from the does with more than one fence if it would be catastrophic for anyone to get bred. 2) Don't believe the backyard breeder when they tell you that this unregistered goat is a purebred Nigerian!! For instance, if my does got bred right now it would be a bummer because they just kidded, but not the end of the world. & if Truffle had been bred by a normal sized Nigerian buck she may well have delivered just fine.
Because this site has 5,000+ unique visitors every month, I feel I need to respond to this particular situation for the benefit of lurkers who may be confused by the idea of putting down a doe and cutting her open to try to save any viable kids. A vet would have had anesthesia available to anesthetize the doe for a c-section, and there would have been no reason to actually put her down. I think this really points to the necessity of having a good goat vet available for emergencies. I know they are in short supply in some parts of the U.S., and this is something that people need to know before getting goats. Eleven years ago, I personally thought I'd be able to just call any vet anytime I had a problem, but most vets don't do large animals, and if they do, most don't have a great knowledge of goats. There were actually more than two options available in this situation, but they would have required a trained vet.
I really hope that anyone who has been reading the last few pages of this thread doesn't think that birthing with goats is a do-or-die situation, because nothing could be further from the truth. There is a lot of variation in "normal," and the vast majority of those variations do not need to end in the death of a doe or the kids.
That was a rough night. I'm sorry you had to deal with that. Thanks for the back story too.
Pregnant doe was trying to deliver. I called the vet after a few hours mainly because her water broke, of course it was a Saturday evening. He said to check for face and hooves, face was there but no hooves. Doe had stopped pushing as much as she was earlier. He said to try to push doe back in far enough to feel for hooves and pull them forward. I felt she was too small for this but I worked opposite the contractions to try to get the kid back down but never could get more than 3-4 fingers in there and never felt hooves. Vet said doe would not make it until he could see her. Two options according to him- put her down and try to deliver kid via csection, or let her continue to try. Obviously the doe would not make it either way so seemed more humane to put her down at this time. Questionable thing was whether to do the section or not. Seemd most likely a stillbirth already occurred but the thought of allowing a potentially viable birth to just die was disturbing. Doe was put down, section done, and kid actually made it. One eye has cleared up, vet says those are ulcers due to lack of immediate mothers colostrum. This was not a light decision, this was the favorite goat, only one ever in my house, and was not meant to be bred. She was bred when we were out of town and the person watching over them and feeding them said the wind took down a fence section, all goats were together when we got back.
So your doe didn't die delivering, you opted to put her down?
Jamie, I glanced back through the discussion trying to figure out exactly what doe you are talking about, because I am a little confused (sorry, I am really getting old I guess, the memory sucks these days) and don't remember you mentioning putting a doe down.
Are you talking about the doe that had the blind kid? I am not sure that I am understanding what you mean. Do you mean that you put down a pregnant doe that was having problems because if she didn't deliver she was going to get an infection? Is that the same one who had the blind kid? If so is what you are saying that she had that kid and then was put down because she wasn't having the rest are what?
I must just be really slow today, sorry, I am terrible confused! I just understand better when I get a lot of details and they are presented in chronological order. Guess that is why I always write real long pieces and give so much detail, so that people understand me better and don't get confused. I need detail so I give detail too!
The kid i recently described is a ND. We have had others births that were ND, including two first timers. the others with previous kiddings. Mostly twins but one single birth- not one problem, all in March, just like this year. And I already said that was why we did put that mom down, as we knew if she didnt deliver she would get an infection.
all is goiing well, even without intervention, thanks for the well wishes. Suggesting abuse, really?
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