This morning another doe had two babies. Much bigger and healthier looking. For the first three minutes of life, they had lots of energy and it seemed like they would stand up. But they never stood. They quickly lost energy and just wanted to sleep.

Their mom got a selenium shot yesterday (everyone agrees that our area is devoid of selenium). We talked to five different goat people and did the following:

Immediately:

We rubbed off the excess moisture. The mom licked them both a lot. We put iodine on their cords. We gave them both a dose of "nutra drench"

After fifteen minutes:

We showed them a teat and tried to get them to suck. No interest. We put a little milk on the teat and a little in their mouths. They just want to sleep.

After an hour:

We mixed strong coffee with mothers milk and force fed them half an ounce each. Still no suck interest for this mix or the milk.

We were told that they have to have the milk within the first hour.

Now we're taking them to the vet. It's going to be too expensive, but if nothing else we can find out for sure why goat aren't doing well here.

Would somebody be so kind as to tell me what would happen if we had normal goats and we did nothing? From what little I know, the baby would stand in about fifteen minutes and feed in about thirty minutes. And would then probably go on to live a full and happy life with nothing but food and water. In our area, selenium shots are probably required. Everything else is probably to boost the health or to make sure a silly little problem does not kill the baby. Right?

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), February 02, 2002

Answers

Hi Paul, I can "hear" your frustration...I'm sorry. One thing I can tell you, is that the selenium (BoSe) injection you gave the dam is a great idea, BUT it should be given 3-4 weeks before she kids, not the day before, so the kids can benefit from the injection before and by the time they are born. Sounds like you did everything you could to get them dry, get them breathing, and get them nurishment. If they were cold and/or weak to begin with, they do sometimes go downhill and seem to give up. When that happens here, I use warmed lactated ringers solution and give the kid 3-4 subQ injections in several places... it's a good "jump start" of the necessary electrolytes and glucose they need initially. The Nutridrench sometimes helps too, but not always.... I've had better luck with the injected lactated ringers. Also, knowing how to tube feed a week kid is a great idea.. since if they're too weak to suck, that's the only way you're gonna get the needed colostrum in them fast enough. A belly full of warm colostrum is crucial ASAP. Good luck with them... I hope you save them and go on to have more "normal" kiddings/kids! We all had to learn this stuff at some point.... and some lessons are harder than others... best wishes :) patty Prairie Oak Miniatures http://www.minifarm.com/prairie_oak visit our message board! http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Littlegoats moderator

-- Patty Putnam (WI) (littlegoats@wi.rr.com), February 02, 2002.

If you really talk with folks who turn their goats out to pasture, no hay or grain or worming, you would be shocked at their mortality rate, both in kids and grown stock. So yes silly little problems can kill off your weakest stock, and that is always the infants and elderly. A selenium injection given at too high a dosage can cause abortion, so was this a normal delivery or weak born to early kids from the shot? In sheep, the information from pipevet.com is to only give 2.5cc no matter how they weigh (like a buck who weighs 210 pounds is not given 3cc), and use the lighter wieght animals at 1cc per 80 pounds, of BO-se and is what I go by on my goats. Remember that each formula of selenium injections, (Bo-se, Mu-se and the 12 or so others) are all formulated with differing amounts of selenium in it. So though 2cc of Bo-se would treat and 160 pound goat, give 2cc of Mu-se which is 4 times the concentrations and you can not only cause abortion but kill the goat. Weak kids at birth and especially an ongoing problem shouts at your nutrition program. Loose minerals are really important and more important is that they actually eat them. Keep Bo-se on hand and give it to your kids under their skin 1/4 to 1/2 cc depending on size, and also you can get Dopram, which improves lung function in ailing kids. Read up on white muscle disease, fix the selenium, copper and E in your goats diet. saanendoah.com is great for drug dosages and her info on nutrition. I use 300 IU capsules of E, snip the end and sqeeze the contents in the mouth of my infants. Nutra Drench and all the other tonics are fine for older does but not for infants. Sorry, but read the labels, you would have to dose an infant with 1 ounce, 30 cc!!! to get just the level of E and infant needs! It is fine for glucose, but hell you can use anything for a sugar rush! Learn to tube, it is like fecaling and pulling blood, you only think you can't do it! 4H kids do it! http://www.nwinfo.net/~milkmaid/ this site and fiascofarm.com have good information on tubing. Your vet could teach you in 5 minutes. Yes we would like our kids up nursing in 1 hour, but realistically this doesn't always happen, I would tube a kid who doesn't drink at least 10% of its body wieght in colostrum at 12 hours. When we had Boers, I would go out with older does colostrum and tube the kids who were nursing very young moms, it bolstered the kids.

We don't have normal goats. Our goats are raised in artifical invironments that we create. Chemical fetilizers synthetically boost the protein in our pastures and hay, which then those same chemicals bind with the vitamins and minerals making them inaccessible to the stock. We keep them in to small of areas for extended periods of time, grazing pastures when goats should be browsing up in the hills! Goats who don't eat grass rarely get worms, rarely have cocci problems. Kept naturally your goats would die off, the ones who are genetically able to live with very little selenium in their diet would have babies who would go on to do the same thing, they would adapt, but we cull the wrong kids, we want the big robust does, the colorful kids, and big and robust doesn't grow out on just browse. We have created this monster, now we have to manage it! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), February 02, 2002.

A trip to the vet made a big difference. The babies are up and about and eating on their own.

And the problem was ...

I feel so stupid.

It was so obvious.

Why didn't I think of it? Why didn't everybody else think of it?

Stop here, take a moment and see if you can think of it.

. . . . . . . . . .

Why didn't we think of this for the tiny babies? Duh? It probably would have saved them too.

The vet must think we're pretty stupid.

Ready for the answer? They were cold. The garage where they were born is 40 degrees (I have a thermometer out there). The books say that if the area is cold, bring it up to 40 and that's plenty. We even brought them into the house and pushed the temperature in the house up to 75 - but that's too little, too late. We should have taken their temperature. To see if they were cold despite the book saying that they weren't.

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), February 02, 2002.

There's got to be something nutritional going on for them to not be thriving cuz of the 'cold'. I've had lotsa goats, sheep,cattle, born in temps easily 50 degrees colder than that, and they've usually done fine.

-- Earthmama (earthmama48@yahoo.com), February 02, 2002.

Cold? Well your vet saw them and made the diagnosis. I think you have a nutrician problem too. I just found an unexpected lamb born in my flcok of sheep. Up, running, and jumping, healthy as a spark (and ten times as fast!) can't be more than 8 hours old. It was -14c here last night. A simple blood test to check up on your minerals won't cost the world and is a herd health cost. Selenium is down no doubt, but I'm thinking your low on copper too. My guess isn't worth a dime but that test will be.

-- Ross (amulet@istar.ca), February 02, 2002.

They have a loose salt/mineral mix.

Maybe we should do a full blood workup on one of the does and see what it says. Get the facts on what they are short on.

We've been feeding them all they hay they want (it may not be very good hay). We've also been supplementing twice a day with a bit of MCOB and alfalfa.

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), February 02, 2002.

Chasing that lamb musta weakened the brain that's nutrition not nutician...............

-- Ross (amulet@istar.ca), February 02, 2002.

Seems like we always have some born that don't seem like they'll make it on their own. Anymore, I save myself the headache. As soon as I see the new kids, I bring them in the house, run a towel through the dryer til it's hot, and wrap them up in it. I'll milk out the mom and syringe feed the kid an ounce or whatever I can get down it about every hour...some will take several ounces, some I have to force drops down, but I've never lost one yet, even ones I've found so cold they're in a stiff position and can't even move. I set up a dog crate for them and keep them in for 2 days before moving them outside, at which time they're usually doing great, and I continue to bottle feed them. Funny thing, they never go back to their moms, so when it's weaning time, they holler when they see me, not their moms.

-- CJ (cjtinkle@getgoin.net), February 02, 2002.

Paul I certainly don't know anything about COLD :) Blood test would be great, but use the next death of an older animal for a liver panel, and read saanendoah.com Mollassas/corn/oats/barley and poor hay equals no protein, which could be another problem. Glad the kids have perked up, certainly the vet did other things that could account for them perking up other than warming them? Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), February 02, 2002.

They actually perked up quite a bit on the way to the vet. The car heater combined with the car exhaust running under the passenger seat probably did the trick.

Okay, their temp is now 102. We have fed them quite a bit - well, one of them ate quite a bit, the other is still in more of a force feed mode. But they still have not stood up. Should we be worried?

We have avoided alfalfa feeds with the goats because I worried about bloating. I'll go get some alfalfa hay tomorrow.

What else?

-- Paul Wheaton (paul@javaranch.com), February 02, 2002.

Paul, listen to Vicki. From her postings, it appears she has an exetensive amount of experience with goats. You need protein in your feed. Dump the COB and get a good goat ration. I know, COB is cheap, but when you go cheap on feed, expect problems. If these goats are going to produce milk for the kids, they need a high protein ration, not just alfalfa. I would opt for at least a 16% goat ration.

-- David (mncscott@ak.net), February 02, 2002.

I have a question about this too.

Can you feed a calf starter to goats (it is 16% protein) or maybe a dairy cattle ration which is 16% protein? The calf starter will be medicated (around here anyway, it is put out by Nutrena) and the dairy ration won't be - purina or nutrena.

The reason I am asking is that if I want to get a goat ration of 16%, I would have to ask the feed store to place a special order of 1/2 ton. can you imagine how long I'd have that feed if I only had two or three does? It would probably go bad before I could feed that much even keeping it up on pallets off the barn floor.

No one in my area really has dairy goats (as I found out when I started my search for them). Folks that do have goats, feed them horse feed or the old stand by , corn, oats, etc.

So would it hurt the does to have the cattle feed? I can get a high protein horse feed easy as well, like Omolene for foals/yearlings.

Any way, any comments?

-- Cindy (colawson@mindspring.com), February 03, 2002.

A long time ago a man who taught animal science told me that a cold newborn was usually a hungry newborn: I am guessing here, but perhaps a larger syringe feed would have been helpfull? He said he always tried to hang around to make sure he saw a baby drink, and if they didn't drink within 15 or 30 minutes or so after birth he would encourage them to get up and nurse, guiding their nose to the proper place and, if necessary, squirting a little milk onto their nose to give them the taste.

-- Terri (hooperterri@prodigy.net), February 03, 2002.

I have to say, that I have had kids born in below zero weather that did just fine. Once in a while I have to bring a kid insde, not very often, like last year a kid was starting to get frost on his ears because his dam had had a hard birth and wasn't cleaning him up. But these kids snap out of it and start eating and walking around when they get a little colostrum and warm up, and these are the exceptions. 95% of the kids here stay in the barn and need no help except to make sure that they get the hang of nursing and that the mother has accepted them. 40 degrees is mild...Aside from the selenium, I would also wonder what the body condition of the dams is, can their ribs and backbones be felt, and how easily?

About normal goats..It is not normal for them to be penned and confined. If they had their way they would run in the forest and eat what they need- bark, shrubs, they are great for knowing what they need at the time. They would fight and breed young, and the weak does that were unable to grow well and sustain a pregnancy at an early age would die. Poor mothers would not perpetuate themselves. Goats can definitely do well with nothing but food and water (and daily care such as milking and basic maintenance.) But what kind of food? Given the right food they could do this, but as goatkeepers, we restrict their food sources and force them to eat what is set before them and they have little choice in the matter. That's why we have to really watch and make sure we are giving them the right kind of food. Left to their natural devices, they would eat bark and certain plants to satisfy their needs for minerals, if we don't let them do this, we have to provide the minerals ourselves. There is a happy balance and I think that's what we should be striving for- animals that grow and produce well with a minimum of special care.

You might try feeding them some black oil sunflower seeds, this will be high in protein and fat, and really helps.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), February 03, 2002.

Nice post Rebekkah, the black oil sunflower seed idea is a good one. Paul, make all changes slowly over a couple of weeks, don't just go throwing a bale of hay into the feeder, even a flake may be to much if the goats are really on poor quality hay. Also with the grain, if you do move on to a goat pellet, you will also be plumeting their 25% molassas feed of about 11% protein to 12% molassas (which will reak havoc with their blood sugar level, though it will help their rumen!) but the protein to the 16% jump will probably cause diarrhea or bloat. So mix half and half for awhile.

Cindy, we are no feeding our milkers a lactation pellet. It is actually based on the Purina dairy cow feed that I can not get in my area, even though it comes from Fort Worth. Nobody uses it so for me to get it they would have to mix 4 tons! So the coop near me makes a dairy pellet for cows and goats! Yeah! So go with the non-medicated cattle feed, we actaully used a calf starter for years before we got our other custom mix we no longer use. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), February 04, 2002.

Nice post Rebekkah, the black oil sunflower seed idea is a good one. Paul, make all changes slowly over a couple of weeks, don't just go throwing a bale of hay into the feeder, even a flake may be too much if the goats are really on poor quality hay. Also with the grain, if you do move on to a goat pellet, you will also be plumeting their 25% molassas feed of about 11% protein to 12% molassas (which will reak havoc with their blood sugar level, though it will help their rumen!) but the protein to the 16% jump will probably cause diarrhea or bloat. So mix half and half for awhile. Yeast, Probios, or baking soda will help with the change over.

Cindy, we are now feeding our milkers a lactation pellet. It is actually based on the Purina dairy cow feed that I can not get in my area, even though it comes from Fort Worth (about 3 hours north). Nobody uses it so for me to get it they would have to mix 4 tons! So the coop near me makes a dairy pellet for cows and goats! Yeah! So go with the non-medicated cattle feed, we actaully used a calf starter for years before we got our other custom mix we no longer use. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), February 04, 2002.