hi my name is karin. i ran into a problem today, that i haven't come across yet. one of our goats had a single kid last year, and we didn't expect much more this year.when i came home yesterday at about 2:30 pm there was a kid all dry and fluffy, but the afterbirth hadn't come out ,yet. at choretime 4:00 pm, we seen, that there was another hoof trying to come out. it took her a long time, and with a little tucking from us, she had another kid at about 7:30 pm. now we thought we were all done,and just went out about 9:30 pm, to make sure everybody was o.k. well there was another little head hanging out of mama.the legs were backwards and it took us some time to get it out. now my question: this is 12:15pm the next day. the afterbirth is still hanging in there. what's going on? should i try do get my hand in there, to see if there might be a kid # 4 holding things up? how much longer should i wait for it to drop? if there isn't another kid, could i make things worse by feeling around in there? i would really appriciate any help, i could get . thank you

-- karin morey (wind_crest@hotmail.com), May 02, 2000

Answers

Karin, have you seen any part of the after birth hanging out? If not, I would clip your nails very short,scrub your hand and arm up to the elbow,wash the does rear end with soapy water, lubricate your hand and arm,(I use olive oil) and go in to see if there is another kid in there. If all you can feel is soft edges,nothing hard,there is no kid in there. Is there any chance that she could have passed the placenta and eaten it already? If she has, she should have a discharge,too. If your hand is very clean ,and you are careful and gentle, it shouldn't hurt her to go in to investigate.Just don't pull on anything unless you are sure it is the kid, if you feel only the placenta, don't pull on it, take her to the vet.Please do it as soon as you can, a doe can die from having a dead kid left inside her. Hope everything turns out well,let us know how she does.

-- (daniel1@transport.com), May 02, 2000.

hi! this is karin,again. finally, today, at 4:30pm the afterbirth came all the way out, and dropped. after over 24 hrs. since the birth of that first kid. wow, i never seen anything like it.all three babies are allright and will probably be able to all nurse of the mother. this is important to me, because i already have a calve and a lamb on the bottle. mama is quiet worn out and somewhat overwhelmed with all of them.i will probably give her a selenium shot, because it seems to me that maybe this was why this all took so long. we generally feed it through a mineral-block to them, and they do allright that way.thank you for all the help. this is a great thing to have. thanks again karin

-- karin morey (wind_crest@hotmail.com), May 02, 2000.

Don't forget selenium for the kids too !

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), May 02, 2000.

Karin, this may be to late for your situation but may help in the future. I had an angora goat who delivered one kid and I had to go to work so couldn't stay to see if she would deliver another. I figured if she had done the first by herself and there was a twin she would be able to have that one alone also. When I came home a couple hours later she had afterbirth hanging out, but some how it didn't seem right. I had no idea if there was a second kid (first time with kidding for me) Called a friend who told me to stand with my legs on each side of the goat facing the rear. Put your arms around the goats middle toward the back and gently lift. If there is another kid you will feel the weight and bulk of the kid. I tried this and sure enough she felt like she was still full, so to speak. She was no longer trying to give birth, just acted tired. I cleaned up like above and she had a kid in there, and I had to pull it out. This is kinda dangerous since you can do serious damage to the uterus, etc. but figured if the baby stayed there she would surely die. The kid was dead and the friend said if she didn't pass the afterbirth in a while to give her a shot of (shoot, don't remember the name and it's in the medical kit in the barn) started with a c, you get it from the vet and it starts labor. I did, it did, and the doe went on to deliver several more sets of twins. They also recommended, after digging around in there to put an antibiotic bolus into the uterus if it has not closed up yet just to be safe. You get these from the vet too. I've been inside a doe to many times to count. Seems these angora are suppose to deliver without problems but for some reason I've had backwards babies, heads twisted back, you name it. This is the first kidding season in 8 years I did not have to grease up and go in for one of those little ones. Good luck with your goats, you'll learn after a couple years to spot problems.

-- Betsy (betsyk@pathwaynet.com), May 02, 2000.

The drug you used is pitacin or ocitoson {SP} .One is mainly used for people the other is for animals .

-- Patty Gamble (fodfarms@slic.com), May 02, 2000.

With your problem over, I would re-think your management. Weak contractions and retained placenta are hormonal, but are caused mostly by nutritional problems. Might want to switch from a mineral block, to loose minerals fed free choice. They have to do an awful lot of licking to get anything from a block. I use the Purina's blue bag for cattle, because of the extra copper. Remember that most problems are with the E not the Selenium in goats, and Bo-se and Mu- se have relativley little vitimin E in them, and so does hay that has sat in humid barns for 6 months, waiting for our does to kid and baby goats to be raised on. Elevating your Vitimin E in your does grain with granualted Vit. E, has done wonders for my herd. I purchase it out of the Jeffers catalog, in the equine catalog. Since this addition I do not use Bo-se anymore. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), May 02, 2000.

Vicki, I'm trying to remember, because it has been about five years since we had sheep or goats on the place, but I'm pretty sure we were told not to feed cattle feed or minerals because they had too much copper, enough to be toxic to the smaller ruminants? We did have to give extra selenium, because the soils in New England are very deficient in that.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), May 03, 2000.

Sheep metabolis copper faster than goats so you have to be very careful feeding to much. Goats on the other hand motabolis it much slower and need more. We not only have our copper levels in our feed increased, (with not only a booster pack to the minerals in the feed, but the addition of Headstart also ((a calf manna generic)) but we also use the loose cattle minerals, because we know they are higher. Folks with high production Sannens, and Alpines will even use the coppor boluses. Once you have had goats for awile, Goat Medicine, is truly a valuable tool in you mangement. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), May 03, 2000.

thanks again for all the great answers. i still have to put the last two kids on the mama, in order for her to let them drink. she just never bonded as good with them, because they came so much later then the first one. other then that everybody is doing good. thanks again karin

-- karin morey (wind_crest@hotmail.com), May 03, 2000.

I read all these posts with great interest. I am thinking about getting angora goats or meat goats -- some kind of goats or sheep to eat brush springing up where my land was logged. Saturday I went to an "Open House" of a farm where they ahve about 120 sheep and goats, all for their "fibre". While there my friend (who has goats she got from the open house lady) and I saw a brown sheep in a very worried state with afterbirth hanging out of her. This she discharged in two separate splats. Could this have been two afterbirths from two lams?

Then the poor thing raced frantically about as she had lost her baby or babies. There were pletny of newborn lambs attached to other ewes. If you knowledgeable persons came upon such a situation, what woudl you do?

-- Elizabeth Petofi (tengri@cstone.net), May 04, 2000.

Yes does or ewes can have multiple afterbirths. In fact we had a doe kid with 3 doe kids, a very healthy placenta, and then a buck kid followed by another placenta. Bet you dollars to donuts that this ewe was a first time mother. Could you even imagine giving birth with folks around at an open house? My first freshening Nubains do lots of stange things, like Hailey who insisted on pushing with her nose the kids out of the nice clean barn, into the rainy soaked muddy walkway to the woods, we have had does paw the bedding and paw their kids, to the point where we had to seperate them. Bet this ewe was just very nervous because of all of the comotion, and perhaps being an open house, she wasn't even in a pen with penmates, perhaps in a sale pen, or a front pen (like we use) of animals for sale. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), May 04, 2000.

Karin, you mentioned you wanted goats to clear brushy land. I'd think twice about angoras for this job. When the mohair gets about 2 inches long it collects everything the goats rub against. Burdock and thistle is terrible, and brambles get tangled awful also. The pieces of stuff work it's way right down to the skin quite often and makes the mohair useless for selling (not that there's a market now, other than handspinners). You need to shear them twice a year and maintain their feet also. Since they are horned and it's recommended not to remove the horns they get hooked on things, especially if there is lots of brush. Hope this helps you avoid anymore problems.

-- Betsy (betsyk@pathwaynet.com), May 06, 2000.

Karin...I raise sheep but assume most things with birthing must be similar......when my ewes are through delivering all the babies the afterbirth looks "knotty"...thick and more rope like...clumpy...having trouble describing it here...but it looks different...........then I give an injection of Oxytosin..1cc...this helps her uterus contract..helps her get rid of the afterbirth and it also lets her milk down. Never..never pull the afterbirth out..let it fall out on it's own...it can hang there for days ...but you could do serious damage to the doe by pulling it out. I have found with the oxytosin it usually plops out rather quickly--in a few minutes. Good luck with those babies !!

-- Lynn N. Johnson (lynn@wauka.com), May 09, 2000.

Hello,

My sister-in-law and I have had goats for many years. When we have a "slow" placenta we tie a couple of large metal nuts onto it with some twine. Never had it fail. The lumpy or knotty placenta mentioned above is called "cotyledons." I've had a few with that, too. Never any problem associated with it. Hope this helps. It's definitely worth a try and it's free! Blessings, Sonflower

-- sonflower (sonflower35@icqmail.com), May 10, 2000.