When you deal with farm animals, you often have to deal with death on the farm. It’s not fun or pretty, but it happens. We’ve had two goats die previous to this kidding season and it wasn’t fun. One died of tetanus (get your CDT vaccinations!) and one became so anemic due to parasites that no dewormer could catch up. Unfortunately, that goat came to us full of parasites and we just couldn’t catch her back up. That was very sad to say the least!
This kidding season was our second. Our first kidding season went perfectly without any loss. All of the moms took care of their babies and we didn’t lose anyone.
This kidding season, our first doe to kid had triplets. Everyone came out fine, if tiny. We helped her dry them and made sure she was paying them attention and left them overnight. In the morning one baby was laid out on his side and couldn’t get up. I lifted him to his feet and he crumpled back down.
I took him inside and we syringe fed him powdered colostrum for the first 24 hours, a few mLs every 2-3 hours even overnight. Then for the next few days we fed him every 3-4 hours, kid milk replacer, which was what our vet recommended. We kept feeding him overnight for about 4 days, then switched to 4 bottles a day. He’s doing well, health-wise, but mentally, he’s a little slow. He doesn’t run and bounce like a baby goat. He mostly stands with his head down. But, the vet thinks he may eventually catch up. I guess we’ll see.
The next doe to kid was a complete surprise. We didn’t realize she was so close, so she wasn’t in a barn stall. She gave birth to twins, one gigantic girl and one still born (we think–she kidded overnight so we aren’t completely sure). It was very sad to lose a kid. Penny’s girl, Elsa, is very strong and big, however. We might actually retain her.
Losing a baby goat is very sad, but it is worse to lose the mom. You’ve put a lot of time, money and effort into raising good mother goats and Penny is one of our best moms. She is attentive and always ready to let her baby nurse. Her previous kid, Fiona, nursed until she was almost two years old.
Death happens on a farm. The hardest part is explaining it to the kids–the human ones!
