One of my best does kidded yesterday morning. It seems like she always needs help, either multiple births all tangled up or huge single kids in impossible positions. This time, she'd been pushing for 5 or 6 hours and her cervix still wasn't dilated- a new problem for me. So, I very gently dilated the cervix, and after I got through it, I could see why it hadn't opened. The kids were jemmed togther with a rump blocking the entry. Nothing pointy was pushing against their side of the cervix. I pulled out a beautiful buck and doe kid, and everything seemd just fine. Mom was a little tired, but then she'd just given birth.

Today when I went out to do the chores, Delilah, the mother, seemd very lackluster. An excellent mother, she was hardly looking at her kids and had no appetite for her feed. Then I noticed her push and strain, and alarm bells started to ring... I went in and examined her, and all I could feel was like a big soft tennis ball. I felt from the outside, and could feel a kid's ribs, so I knew there was a kid in there somewhere. After some confused feeling around, some hair came off in my hand, and I realized that the soft bulgy thing was the kid, and it was dead. The belly or back was facing the cervix and nothing else was within reach. I had my son call a goat friend, and after hours of work we were able to finally get one back leg out to pull on. Even then it was really hard to get that kid out and it STUNK! I can't remember when I've done anything so discusting in my life! Needless to say, Delilah was feeling pretty crummy by the time we were through. We rinsed her uterus out, got a lot of hair and other garbage out. I think she will be needing some antibiotics for this if she is going to live. Of course, the dead kid was a doe. My friend thinks the kid had been dead for about a week to be in that condition. I can't help but wonder if I could have prevented this somehow, but I'm glad we were able to get that kid out of there. It was all swollen up like a putrid balloon, very hard to work around it to get anything to pull on. She didn't expel a placenta yet, should she? You all know that I don't like to use a lot of antibiotics, but I think that this time it is definitly called for. I don't know why I've talked about this, except that it was so horrible, maybe someone else can learn something from it, and where else could I talk about these things? Thanks for letting me vent.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), February 20, 2001

Answers

Rebekah, You have my sympathy and understanding. Last year I lost my best doe to infection because of a torn uterus due to a single, very large buckling with his head flipped backward. I called the vet immediately when I discovered the odd presentation and still lost the doe. Of course the buckling lived and I sold him...but the awful feeling that followed that ordeal lasts to this day.

What you have described sounds like a nightmare. Hopefully, the next birth will be perfect with all doelings...maybe that'll help erase some of those awful visions.

Truly sorry to hear about that mess.

-- JimR (jroberts1@cas.org), February 20, 2001.

Rebekah, what a horrible experience....Here's a {{{hug}}}.

I am thinking that perhaps you should give her a vinegar and water douche and DO run a course of strongish antibiotics. Sometimes those things are just what you need. I am a big fan of probios which you can get from the feed store. I give them to my goats whenever they seem to be stressed or slightly ill.

May your next birth be easy as pie, and as Jim said, doelings!

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@excite.com), February 20, 2001.

Sorry that happened Rebekah, and their certainly wasn't anything you could have done to prevent it. Pick an antibiotic that is labeled to treat metritis. I would also thread a week kid tube and syringe, or get a pipet for mares from your vet, and continue with the pen and sterile water douches for several days. Monitor her temp and keep her udder empty several times a day, even if you are letting the kids nurse. You could also use oxytocin given every 6 hours, to help expel the after birth if you never saw one, and this will also help with milk let down, also helping with the uterine contactions, keeping them going for awhile to further clean the uterus and shrink it down. Good luck to you and the doe. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), February 20, 2001.

Rebekah, I don't have goats and know virtually nothing about them but I am sorry you had this experience. At least you can learn from it and know what to do another time.

Once, I found some wee kittens a stray had birthed in the hedgrow at the at the back of our yard. The mother had not moved the kittens after birth and had not cleaned their umblibical cords very well. There were maggots in the holes where the umbilical cords should have been. It was hard for me but I did what I had to do and killed the babies. Almost as bad was having to go into lunch afterwards. We were having rice. Rice and maggots look an awful lot alike. Yuck.

I do hope your doe lives and has more doelings for you.

-- Heather in MD (heathergorden@hotmail.com), February 20, 2001.

I'm having my first kids in the spring. Please, please, please, don't let anything like that happen to me...

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), February 20, 2001.

So sorry that happened Rebekah.While I agree about not using antibiotics too often this is definitely a case for them(plenty and often)Cases like this is what antibiotics are for.Good luck with her. And for Dee....what you see on the forum are the problems.Goats don't usually have problems kidding.It seems,from the posts,that everyones goats are dropping like flies.In reality,hundreds of easy births occur for every hard one.

-- JT in Florida (gone2seed@hotmail.com), February 20, 2001.

Thanks JT.

-- Dee (gdgtur@goes.com), February 20, 2001.

Well, Delilah is still alive, and seems to be doing better. Her milk has come in and she is walking around and eating. Her udder seems a little congested, but maybe it's from all the trauma she has sustained? Could she have expelled the placenta before the kid? I don't think she would have eaten it if is was as rotten as the kid. I still have not been able to get to town and get some medicine for her. We did have a homeopathic shot that works wonders for sick animals and gave her that when we cleaned her out. She does not have any discharge, just looks very, very sore, poor thing! Thank you all for your encouraging words, the fact that she has two healthy live kids and is doing OK herself helps a lot. My friend that helped me has been in goats a lot longer than myself, and said she has never pulled anything that bad, or had so much trouble doing it. So I don't think it's likely to happen to you. I had always wondered what it meant when a herd brochure said, "due to a hard kidding, Angelface was not shown this year". Now I know! We had another pair of healthy, happy kids born this morning without any complications.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), February 21, 2001.

Oh, I forgot, the kids born this morning were twin doelings! They are even a nice color, chamoisee with white stars on their foreheads!

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), February 21, 2001.

Probably not what you are wanting to hear, but I would be VERY concerned that she is not having a discharge, she must pass the lochia inside her uterus, just like a doe having a normal delivery or you are looking at infection, sterility and/or death. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), February 21, 2001.

Rebekah:

I agree that antibiotics are in order. I would also give her a Vit. B complex injection of about 8 cc's. Have you checked the goatworld.com emergency site? You can find on-call volunteers in your area to answer questions. These people are either vets, vet technicians, or extremely experienced breeders. The URL is http://www.goatworld.com/911/ Are you a member of a goat specific email list? You can find one for your breed at www.cybergoat.com. Lots of helpful people there.

Hope Delilah gets better.

Skip Walton www.sundaycreek.com/nubians

-- Skip Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), February 21, 2001.

Well, I know zippo about goats really, but did have a very simular experience with a mare once. The farm I worked at had a mare who coliced about a month before her due date. When I found her she seemed shocky & I suspected a twisted gut. I immediately had the owner summon the vet. When he got there he thought she hadn't twisted a gut, but had a unterine torsia (twisted uterus). We took her to the vet hospital and sure nuff that's what it was. They did surgery and things went OK until a few weeks later she had some nasty discharge. The vet was called again and I will never forget him saying "We've got to get this THING out of here now!". The 'thing' turned out to be a barely, but still alive colt. The smell was sickening...thick puss- like fluids instead of normal "water"! The foal only lived a couple days and only was able to stand 1 time. Very sad. That mare was on massive antibiotics for several weeks. I quit there not too long after that, but last I heard she was being bred again & was doing fine.

-- elle (eagle-quest@juno.com), February 24, 2001.