Baby Goats : February 2011

      Life has been busy and we have had a few newborn baby goat losses. The first 2 kids were out of a doe we have named Starlight. Several months back she had a worm load issue that we found out about by doing some fecal checks on her (Thanks to Abigail and Melody!). We found out her problem and treated her. She responded to the treatment and we bred her to a buck of ours. Well, she again began to have problems with her gut so we treated her for cocci, with a treatment that was suppose to be safe during pregnancy. But, it obviously affected her in a way that was not good. When we went out about a week ago to check on all the goats before going to bed, we found the 2 kids on the ground. They were about 2 months premature.

 The next kid death was on 2-17-11. I was at an appointment in town when I received a phone call from my daughter that does the goats with me. She was watching a doe we have (Doris) - Doris was in labor and pushing quite hard. My daughter went up inside to fell what was up and found the backbone of a kid coming down the canal. This normally spells trouble if it is not dealt with very quickly. In this case, I don't think there was anything that could have been done differently to save the kid. My daughter proceeded to straighten out the kid (that was already lifeless) and pull her out. Pretty quickly, there was a second kid that came in the breech position and was alive. This kid was followed by 2 more! So, 3 alive and 1 DOA.

      This morning we went out to feed the does after milking time and there were the 2 buckling kids dead in the barn. We had no clue at first whose they were but, after a quick look at some tails we discovered that it was Snickers. She is a bottle doeling that we kept from last year. Earlier this year (well, about 5 months ago!) we had a few different buck break-ins (OOPS!). Little Snickers obviously got bred during one of those times (without us knowing). These 2 kids were dead when we found them. They were all cleaned off but, the mother was not even by them. It seems that she birthed them in the middle of the night and never nursed them. It is quite possible that another doe licked them off as we have lots of motherly does in the barn.