one of my does gave birth to twins this am. we went down to feed and found one baby up and nursing and the other laying down not looking too good. neck was bent to one side and limbs were cold. I rubbed him down to get circulation going.....still didn't respond too well. mama was standing for him to nurse but when we tried to hold him up to nipples he would just flop. we ended up bringing him in the house and wrapping him in towels we put in the dryer to warm. we mixed up some colostrum and got him to take a sip or two....no real sucking instinct.....I cranked the heat up in the bathroom and got him to take more bottle and this time he put some effort into it. well its been about an hour now and he is standing although shaky. the neck has straightened out. Is it possible he was squished in the womb? my question now is if he makes it....can I put him back with his mama (if theres no problem with her) or do we just go ahead with making him a bottle baby? This is the first problem Ive run into with kidding so any advice would be much appreciated!
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thank you myra
Myra Isaac said:
thank you so much glenna
Glenna Rose said:
yeah we had brought him in the house and set him up in a large dog kennel with blankets (and a teddy bear). had a heater on near the kennel too. guess he was too stressed out.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
I am so very sorry, Rose. That is heartbreaking. Having lost two (and another at birth) last spring from my senior doe's quads, I have total empathy for you. Hugs to you all.
Sorry to hear that, but I've seen it happen. When they get chilled at birth, they often have trouble maintaining their body temperature for the first couple of days. Did you put him back outside? We had a kid this year that we would have lost if the timing hadn't been in our favor. Luckily we happened to be in the barn and see that he was going downhill again, so we were able to bring him inside again.
well unfortunately the little guy passed away sunday nite. he had done so well during the day; he was walking around, sucking down a bottle, even playing a little.....its sooooo heartbreaking......I really thot he was gonna make it...he had settled down abt 9 pm and slept....when we got up in am he was gone. my husband was just as upset as I was....
It's really not unusual at all for only one kid to be affected by hypothermia. That's usually the way it is. The does simply have an instinct to lick their babies, but they don't have a clue how much they're licking each one clean. The colder it is, the more likely you'll lose a kid to hypothermia if you're not there to dry them off. The longer that a kid is wet, the more likely it is to become hypothermic. At least she did get the little guy's nose cleaned off in a timely manner so that he didn't suffocate. Maybe the little guy was born first, and she started cleaning him, but then the second kid was born, and she totally forgot about him until the second one was completely clean. It really could have played out a dozen different ways. And the lack of a sucking instinct is a classic hypothermia symptom also. He was nearly dead when you found him. I always say the most important thing to have in your kidding supplies are plenty of towels!
thanks so much Deborah! Its weird that one would be affected and not the other....and the way the neck and both ears were bent in the same direction I thought that perhaps his twin who was larger had left little room for him in the womb.
anyway, he's doing great now....he's chugging on the bottle and is walking around...I expect he'll be bouncing around by tmorrow....
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
You just described textbook hypothermia. Next time it happens, to quickly warm up a kid, you can put him in a sink of warm water or wrap him in a heating pad. If you wrap him in a heating pad, however, you need to be holding him and put your finger in his mouth to see how he warms up. If you overheat him, he can have a seizure.
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