James:
This is my first time writing to SurvivalBlog. We have been raising goats and sheep for five years. Country Lady’s comments in Dairy Goats 201 – Birthing Kids are pretty much on the money. We have had to pull stuck twins, bottle feed when one of our ewes’ had 1/2 of her bag go dry(she had twins) and have lost sheep to pneumonia and a goat to bloating. We raise our sheep and goats for meat on the table. My wife read every book about sheep and goats that she could. It was a good information source, But in the end, our vet, who is a wonderful country vet who has seen it all, said “throw those books away!” You have to be with the animals. You have to be ready for what ever. We use old towels to wipe down the babies, we vaccinate right away and babies and mom go to a horse stall with a heat lamp for a couple days. Its can be cold in upstate Michigan. The best advise you can get when starting out is the advise of someone who has done it before. Our sheep and goat experience has been rewarding and we plan to eat if everything falls apart . Happy hobby farming , it’s a good way to be prepared. Remember to help those willing to help you! Chuck in Northern Michigan
JWR:
Being addicted to raising goats, I was quite interested to read Dairy Goats 201 – Birthing Kids, by Country Lady. I realize that if one crammed 1,000 goat breeders/raisers into a large auditorium, 1,000 different “correct” ways would probably present themselves as to birthing. I’d like to take a moment to point out several issues that in 10 years of being a goat keep I’ve learned:
First, re: “The father of all the babies listed below is Cappuccino, a half Nubian, half Nigerian Dwarf yearling buck. Since Cappy is fairly small, we expected easy births of smaller babies, but that turned out to be just a theory as both male kids had large Nubian heads that caused a lot of birthing pain for the two smaller does.”
Bucklings, specifically Nubians, do not mature until approximately three years. A yearling might weigh 80 pounds and the same three year old might weigh in at 200 pounds. I might look to the width and depth of the pelvic cradle of the does, especially smaller breeds for inability to kid with ease.
“Anne punctured the sack with her fingernail (she had already washed her hands and poured alcohol over them).”
The alcohol is great, the puncturing might present a problem.
In a perfect delivery, goat kids would be delivered with “nose down between legs.” But we don’t live in a perfect world.
Presentations are likely to be breech, one leg forward with the other hitched behind the pelvic bone, or a myriad of other complications. The placenta is designed to protect and cushion the kid from the outside world until full delivery. If the presentation is not “appropriate” or one must manipulate a tangled set of limbs as the kids seem to “race to emerge first”, what happens if the Placenta has been pierced? The fluid, and in some cases the Meconium can be forced back into the lungs. A kid might suffocate before emergence if the delivery is extended beyond several minutes. Worse, the kid might survive to not thrive with constant infections.
God designed a wonderful system in which a Doe in most cases will remove the membrane from the muzzle of the kid by licking. This serves numerous purposes two of which are: stimulating breathing and eliciting the cry which from first breath will be identified as “her kid” strengthening the bonding process.
“We tried to get Baby to nurse Calico, but all she would do was lick her – we realized that Baby must have been bottle-fed and did not know how to mother.”
This is a fallacy that many newer individuals subscribe to. While there are Dams who are what we might consider “poor” mothers, Nature has imbued in these critters the drive to reproduce and nurture their offspring. In the case of a CAE (Caprine Arthritis-Encephalitis Virus) Positive Doe if one chooses to “reduce the transmission” (notice I do not say eliminate, but that would be another post entirely) it is imperative that the kids be removed before the Dam cleans them at all.
After years of “clean goats”, I did have a positive and did pull the kids. Both Doelings delivered and mothered kids 20 months later. This year our crop of kids totaled 42. Of those I chose to remove a Quad or two, pull some as bottle babies for 4H or Show purchasers, or assist a first freshener with production issues. In the years that I have done this, not one Bottle Doe has kidded with issues of inability to Nurture with the exception of one line that seemed to have a reappearance of this trait. This line was culled as if TSHTF, coddling cannot be continued at this level.
In all it is wonderful to read of someone who enjoys raising goats. I’d encourage those who are interested to research, research, research – now. Our lines have been bred over the last six years or so to maximize production with lower grain input, increase worm resistance thereby reducing our dependency on wormer, and increase mothering skills. – Mutti (A SurvivalBlog Reader via TMM, and originator of The Goat Chronicles.)