Our FF is grieving, how can I help her?

[mzgarden]

Long story short the kid was born and she bonded before we knew it was there.  It was not formed properly but alive and mewling.  Our FF had dutifully taken care of it, dried it off, etc.  We had to take the baby and put it down.  Our girl is inconsolable. She's been screaming for her baby for hours.  She is frantic running back and forth in the stall.  I feel terrible but the baby would not have made it and I could not let it die a slow, miserable death. 

This is only our second kidding season so I'm not sure what I could have done differently to help our doe.  Should we have brought the kid's body back to her after we put it down, so she could see it was dead and not lost?

How long will she be frantic like this?  Is there anything we can do for her?

I love our goats but I told my husband today - Tomatoes are easier. 

[shellymay]

Yes you could of taken the afterbirth and any fluids left and rubbed it all over one of the triplets, sometimes leg tieing of the adoptive baby is necessary (keeps them down on ground and squirming like a new born, then of course you would untie legs and let it up), anyhow there is more you could of done also with trying to adopt one of the trips on to her.....big chance it would of worked with a doe like that. Now it might be to late...... So sorry for your loss but you did the right thing 

[mzgarden]

shellymay , thanks. I actually did try to get her to adopt one of the triplets. I rubbed some after birth on the boy triplet and put them in the pen together. I didn't know that was 'a thing' but it seemed logical to me that if it smelled like hers she might take to it.  I sat in there and got him to nurse but she's having none of it. This morning I opened the kidding pen where the triplets & momma are.  She ran in and sniffed all of them. When none of them were hers, she backed out and won't let any of the kids come near her.  

While I feel terrible for her, but I am trying to make the most of it by learning.  I am milking her out twice a day and freezing the colostrum and I will continue to milk her through. If we need to make  one of the triplets a bottle baby  I'll use her milk to ensure our other doe can feed her two.  Trying to make lemonade out of lemons is a lot harder on my heart than I thought it would be.  I wish I had grown up with livestock so I would be knowledgeable, experienced and confident when the hard things happen.  Ah well.

All perspective, insights and education are very gratefully accepted.

[here to stay]

It is hard to watch a good mother grieve for her kids. Time is sometimes the only cure. My vet said that keeping them isolated together gives the best chance of bonding but I think it has to be done very early and there's always a risk to the strange kid.

[mzgarden]

@redfish, thanks. Last night she was not alone in the kidding stall. We have a companion wether that stays with our does so he was with her. He's a half-sibling and they've been together since birth. This morning I completely stripped the stall of all bedding straw, raked everything down to the ground and sprinkled stall sweet. Maybe it's silly, but I'm thinking if I can lessen the smell of her baby, it might help. She and her wether are free in the barn. The doe with triplets is in the barn behind a chain link gate, so visible but not accessible. Mostly because I'm leaving her ration of grain/alfalfa pellets down as choice for a few days and I don't want the others gobbling her food. I open the gate to clean the stall and let everybody mingle for a while but then I close them back up.

I can't underline how grateful I am for inputs and ideas. Being new and wanting our goats to be as happy and safe as I can make them -- your perspectives help me and give me confidence. Keep it coming.

[mzgarden]

here to stay, thanks. Last year we had two does that kidded at the same time - one we still have, one we lost to an injury. The lost doe let every kid nurse, didn't matter whose it was. I was hoping Coco might be that way but so far, no. I'll keep watching, maybe once she settles down, things will be easier.

[Use Less]

You should watch her for symptoms like depression. Goats are prone. I would talk to the vet. It may be that there is a calming med or herbal that would be safe for her.

[shellymay]

mzgarden , FYI......the more part I was talking about, okay so you can take a trip and put it on adoptive doe by one taking afterbirth from her own dead kid and smearing on adoptive kid, make sure to smear on the kids butt and head, nose and back, get something like a big fat rubber band and place on kids front legs together and then a second rubber band on the back legs together, don't let doe smell this kid yet....put doe inlaying down position and glove up stick your hand up into her vigina and up into birthing canel, doe will push like she is having contractions (really trying to get your hand out ) : but she will be pushing like a real delivery, let her push or try to forceyour had out a couple of real good pushes and then remove your hand and have someone place adoptive baby on ground right by her girly parts, If you have anymore or additional fluids on your glove wipe it real good on kid also. With the kids legs in rubber bands and banded together the kid can't jump up quickly and it imitates a newborn who will lay there squirming for a few minutes, alot of times this DOES have to be close to the real birth of her own kid to work but I have had many ewes raise other lambs using this method.....the doe thinks she just had another kid is what this method is all about.....don't make her get up you need to step way back and let her get up on her own and check out the new kid on her own, you will know within a few minutes weather it worked or not......Another method some people like to put vics rub on the does nose, put vics on the head and butt of dead kid or alive in your case, put vics on the head and butt of adoptive baby and this works sometimes as the vics now has confused the doe, this might of worked well in your case since her baby was alive and she could of gotten use to the vics for a while on her nose and her own babys butt and head, when you pulled the kid who wasn't gonna make it you could of slide the adoptive kid in its place.....and other people NOT ME have skinned the dead kid or lamb and placed the hide on the adoptive kid or lamb and that has worked for them, I don't remember what they used to keep it on or around kids body..... People have held the heads of the doe and let baby nurse off doe several times a day for several days, the adoptive kids poop will start smelling like the does own milk scent and she will except the kid in some cases, leaving the kid in a dog crate in same pen as doe is necessary when doing this.....NOTE be very careful when trying some of these methods, if the doe doesn't take the kid then you need to wash off the vics or scent of the other doe or kid so the real mom will take it back, this is not a problem if the kid you are trying to get adopted on is a bottle baby already but can be if you plan on giving back to real mother if it doesn't work with the adoptive mother....At this point and time I wouldn't try these as too much time has passed, but maybe for the future.....

[mzgarden]

shellymay, thanks for the more detailed information. As you say, it's too late now, but I sadly I expect something like this will happen again. Your information will help me be a little quicker and smarter to try this. Appreciate the info.

[mzgarden]

Use Less, good idea, I hadn't thought about that. So far, she's eating and gets up on the milk stand for me without much fuss. She's still calling for her baby but is less frantic about it. Now she just sounds sad.

We opened the gate for the kidding pen. The FF, wether and our triplet momma have been together for more than a year. They were happy to be back together. Momma didn't stray too far from the stall doorway and kept a close eye on all 3 kids but seemed happy to be able to walk around the interior of the barn. I'm hoping this will help our FF begin to get back to normal.

[Deleted]

Here is an odd one.

Prancer was born, her mother was to be winter milk but she had to be put down due to two babies followed Prancer but came out partially together a head and a butt and they were dead mom bleeding bad well we put her down... The vet was two days out. Pretty rural here.I milked the dead doe.

Since all the other does were dried off and the next to kid was two months out Prancer was bottled after the coustum ran out on cows milk.

Two months later and flushed with goat milk I tried to get Prancer to switch to goat milk.
No way so here I was with plenty of goat milk yet buying cows milk at the store....crazy.

Prancer is so far my best doeling so she is worth it.

[mzgarden]

@paisley , I think I remember reading your posts about milking your goat to get the colostrum. 
It seems goats will confound you at every turn, doesn't it? Sure is lucky for them (& us) we love them.