Can you help? Post-kidding problems

[mzgarden]

You may have seen my post yesterday about the doe code lives on.  Well, this morning things were great, now they're going downhill.  First Fresheners and our first time with babies as well.

Delivery was yesterday - 1 and 5 days early respectively so timing shouldn't be an issue.  First girl had triplets - two good sized bucklings and a tiny doeling.  Second girl had twins - really big buckling and average sized doeling.  Overnight all was well.  Appeared everyone was nursing properly, momma's are attentive and everyone seemed fine.  We have one warming area but the babies kept wandering out to be with the mommas.  Day 2 - Checked on everybody at 5am, 7am, 9 and 11 - all good.  Checked again at 1 -- lost the little doeling from the triplets.  The weather here is dropping very fast to get much colder than normal.  Moved everybody into a single 14x14 pen and put all the babies in the warming area and noticed nobody had a nice roundish tummy.

Put the momma's on the milking stand and between the two of them got about 1/2 cup - that seems far too little to support these babies.  They are FF's and this is day 2 so assuming their milk isn't really in yet?  We were going to move the boys to bottle babies but hadn't planned it this early.  Got out the bottles and I guess we'll feed them - good idea or bad?  Are we jumping the gun?

Tonight the temp is supposed to drop way down - to about zero.  They are all in the barn, out of drafts etc. but thinking maybe we better bring the babies into the house overnight and bottle feed to get them through.  Good idea or bad idea?  and then, how do we reaclimate them to the cold of the barn and to their mom's if we take them away overnight -- problem? or not?

Going forward, we will breed later in the year to avoid the cold weather, but for now -- just trying to make good decisions about keeping these kids alive and well and I feel like we're getting panicky and just jumping all over the place with ideas. 

Help?

[shellymay]

That is NOT enough milk between the two...........I would stick my fingers in their mouths to see if it is cold or warm, a good indicator

as to weather or not they are getting enough to eat as a well fed kid can keep body temps up and a hungry kid can't...

Okay now lets address the cold temps, you can make baby coats for them out of old sweat pants and shirts, just search on internet for

 homemade goat kid coats and you should be able to find them...follow the directions or pictures as they are (they are proven to work

and you don't want to make changes that are not proven)  You can also take their temps with thermometer and find out if they are normal

or not  

As for the feeding them if you find you need to, always best to keep them with their moms, assuming they have their coats on  you can

offer them the bottle and feed them outside in the pen mom is in, nothing keeps a person from feeding them while they are with their moms

and that way they get the best of both worlds (figure of speech there) There are many cases that the biggest baby will hog the milk and push

the sibs out of the way, sometimes you just need to supplement the weakest or hungriest one, sometimes both if mom isn't producing enough

to go around.....

I want to say that I am not a vet and this info is in no way a guarantee but I have done it many times and many others do it, sometimes with

all you do...you can still lose them! it is your decision in the end but yes sometimes when you take them away from moms and return later moms

will reject them but sometimes they don't! thing is by bringing them into your home it will be harder for them to learn to adjust their body temps

to the outdoors again, so if you decide to pull them from moms keep in mind that it would probably be a permanent thing and you will be raising

a full time bottle baby....

Hope this helps    

Oh one more question, have you ever bottle fed a baby goat before?

[mzgarden]

shellymay, thanks. the quick question -- both our girls were bottle babies as was our wether, but they were not newborn. They had a couple weeks under their belts before we got them.

Off to look for a coat pattern. I tried one idea I found using infant sweatshirts but they didn't work. I'll go back and look for a different set of instructions.

[shellymay]

I will be getting off work in a few minutes and it will be 1-2 hrs before I log back on (gotta do chores ) but I want to say

real quick NEVER try to feed a baby a bottle if their mouths are cold or their body temps are down, ALWAYS warm them up

first

[mzgarden]

shellymay, @redfish, thanks so much. The moms are attentive and stand to let the kids nurse. We saw that they both delivered an afterbirth, so that's good. In the last few hours the moms have started hollering out - sort of like when they are in heat. They are eating hay, they ate their grain and alfalfa well and are poo'ing fine. Not sure why they are yelling - it seems to come and go but maybe they're just not used to being penned up all day, so maybe they're just confused about all the changes.

We had an XL igloo dog house in one of the pens - but the kids wouldn't stay in it so we moved it out.
I think we will hold off bottling the kids for another day to make sure they get colostrum. I'll check their mouths periodically and make sure everyone's mouth is warm.

Hope tonight goes well and things settle down. Wish we had more experience, but I guess this is how everyone gets it - living it through. Appreciate you checking in and giving suggestions.

[Deleted]

Sorry you are dealing with issues

Keep an eye on them but you may want to bring them in late tonight and take them out in the early morning.

Also, I have never ever found that taking them in for a night will cause the dam to reject the kids! I cannot even tell you how many time I personally do this along with my goat "family" (all the goat people I have purchased, sold & know goats from/to etc= LOTS OF PEOPLE!) Unless the dam doesn't want the kids to begin with, that is another story.

Yes, I have even taken kids away from FF for as long as 2 days and never had an issue. Sheep may be a different story, but never I have seen a doe totally reject a kid after taking it for a few hours. The does have already had time to bond with the kids, it would be different if you took them away at birth before the doe had ever bonded.

I personally would bring them in overnight. I am not one to try and stack the odds against a newborn kid. You have already lost one kid, how many are you willing to lose? Even if the doe for some bizarre reason the does rejected the kids, you will at least have SAFE kids. IF you had to bottle feed, yes it could be permanent for about 2-3 months. DEATH is permanent forever.

I for one cannot afford to leave my kids out and "let nature take its course". It breaks my heart to see a dead kid.

I have found that Nubians are weather wimps- out of all the different breeds the kids really seem to have a tough time in the cold.

If it makes you feel better, I have kept kids from my Nubian for over 2 weeks at a time and she would always take them back. I was doing part bottle feeding/part dam raising.

Do the coats, but PLEASE don't them suffer if you go out and see them chilled. I have dealt with a few folks who absolutely refused to bring a kid in....Of course those kids almost always freeze of get squished to death by the dam- trying to keep the kid warm.

Keep an eye on the ears, tail, & hooves, it is very easy for them to get frostbite.

[Deleted]

Like the other posters said, the doe might be holding back her milk. But if you milked her dry and only got 1/2 cup you have an issue.

Lat spring when my nubian girl kidded she had twins on her AND I still had to milk out 3qts of colostrum (left some for the kids) because she was over uddered.

Now these girls are FF's so I wouldn't expect that much, but they should still have more.

Forgot to say... CONGRATS on the kids! Can't wait to see pics!

[mzgarden]

@goatlady, thanks for the encouragement. We've got coats on them and we were out and saw all 4 kids nurse again and then wander back over to their hidey hole of hay bales and go to sleep in a big heap.

Still not sure why the moms have started periodically yelling. They stopped when we went out and sat in the pen and the kids nursed, but 30 minutes after we came back to the house, she's hollering again. Guess we'll have to watch them for some signs of something. We have a good goat vet so if by tomorrow they are showing any additional signs of irritation or discomfort, I'll have the vet out to check them over.

[Deleted]

I have noticed most of my does get very loud after kidding too. Regardless if they are dam raising or if I'm bottle feeding. Just keep doing what you are doing- keeping an eye on them

If you are EVER worried that something is going on, TAKE THEIR TEMP! I cannot stress this enough. So many will start throwing the medicine cabinet at the goat before ever taking a temp. This will also be the first question your vet will ask

[shellymay]

The hollering the does are doing could be yes they are in a pen and don't care for the new digs, but a lot of them do this because they are calling their kids to come and the brats aren't listening
(just like humans  ) the babies may not want to get out of their nice warm spot and are ignoring moms, some moms will go hunt them down when they don't show up after being called, some
moms just keep hollering....Hence thats why when you went out and the kids drank from the moms the moms got quite! 

[mzgarden]

shellymay , I think I have to agree with you. If we had more experience, and hadn't been so focused on the kids, we would have connected those dots -- you're right. I see the pattern - mom's yell, we go investigate, kids eat and it starts again in 2-3 hours.

Gee, I'll feel so much better next year when I've got a little experience under my belt.
Can't tell you all how much I appreciate you all holding my hand.

[shellymay]

While some things are repetitive year in year out, none of us stop learning as critters always seem to like to throw in something new to keep us wondering  
 I think I mentioned this on CopperKids post, more times then not when a sheep of ours has trips one of the trips will always be smaller and if we leave them on 
momma they continue this throughout their couple of months being with the family, or one dies shortly after they are born because of always being pushed off the 
teat and weakness sets in and they can't survive...

So assuming they all live and you have the one that is stunted and so much smaller then the others, I couldn't sell it (her) as a breeding stock due to her size, cost 
the same amount to have that runt slaughtered as it does its sibling that is twice the size and twice the meat, So whats the point of TRIPLETS if one of them never
amounts to much?? So we no longer let a ewe raise trips anymore and once the babies get their colostrum we pull one of them and bottle raise and by doing this
they will normally all be very close in size during their up bringing and everyone is on a even scale when considering things like keep/sell for breeding stock/slaughter,
 You have a advantage over me and that is your home and they are there at home with you and you can bottle feed while they stay with moms, moms will teach them
a lot quicker then you can things like how to eat solids/drink water/ect ect....So for you I would do that if you could, me well with where we are now in our numbers 
and having the sheep on a different farm then the home site it doesn't work out as traveling back and forth with my job and bottle feeding nope nope nope, but it doesn't
keep me from pulling and bringing baby home and bottle feeding and training them to bucket, so that is what I do and it works out great 

[Wendy]

I guess I am the odd one out on the coat thing. If they have coats on they are unable to fluff up their hair which is where they get their insulation from. Have you ever watched a goat fluff up their hair in the cold? I have Nubians & am not far from you. Mine do fine in the cold. All of my kids are in the barn in a stall with no heat lamps or anything special. I think it is harder on them moving them into the warmth of the house & back out into the cold than it is to just leave them out to acclimate to it right away. They have each other & their moms to snuggle with for warmth. I bottle feed all of my kids. I had a set of twins yesterday & another set today. They are in the house for the first 2 days because of feeding more often, but by day 3 they go out with the rest of them & get fed twice a day like the others. I have never lost any doing it this way & all of my kids are growing well & eating well. THey are now eating grain & hay also. That will help the younger ones pick up on it quicker once I out them in there too

Congrats!

[motdaugrnds]

Glad you got some coats on those kids...I use the sleeves of old sweaters. (The part of the sleeve closest to the hand goes around the kids' necks; and then the rest covers their backs with the bottom part where a boy needs to pee is cut off...not "out" but off so there is nothing disturbing the back legs.)

I wouldn't worry too much about the kids nursing as long as you see them do it at all. New borns don't drink much at a time; just often....ummmm unless you got a little pig, which I've had at times. (I've seen the dam keep the largest kid away while the other nurses; so the mothers are quite smart.)

I raise Nubians too and they are quite vocal; however, there is a difference in the sound when they are calling their kids...unless the kids cannot be seen. If kids are hiding, vocalizing is louder.

I've also bottle fed many a kid, at times taking it into the house to warm it up prior to feeding it; always returning it as soon as it appears strong enough. (Does have never rejected them.) Also, I always keep some of the colostrum each year, freezing it in ice trays for use if needed the next year.

[mzgarden]

The update: everybody had a good night and are up and nursing this morning. This is day 3 so they should have gotten colostrum and moving into milk at this point. We will be bottle feeding everybody but keeping them with Moms. We had made a hay bale corner (shaped like a U) for the babies to bunch up together to sleep for warmth. We angled the hay bales out at the opening so the mom's can now lay partly in the U shape and they seem happier.

Thanks again for everyone's help and suggestions. There's such a big difference between reading and studying to be ready and then living it the first time! I like it when there are different perspectives, helps me know I have options to choose from and that there's no one right way to be successful. Today is picture day!

[shellymay]

Great update, happy to hear all is good

[mzgarden]

And finally, here are the pics.
First 2 are Eleanor's boys and then Katherine's boy and girl.

 

 

[shellymay]

So darn cute, okay it was worth the wait  Love the floppy ears!

[Wendy]

Pretty!