I posted for help in regards to length of time between kids and want to thank all for your responses. She is doing fine and so is the new buck. As she is a pygmy and was bred to my registered Nigerian Dwarf buck I of course was hoping for a doe but getting a buck with both kid and mom doing fine is ok.

My new question is when my next doe (due in may) kids would it be a big risk to do a vaginal exam with my hand after she has kidded? She is my pet and I think would be more cooperative to do this I think it would help me in the future to have done it before trouble happens again. I am also thinking that if I do this with every doe in the future they would know what I was doing and also having felt in normal kidding I might be more likely to realize something is wrong in the future.

gail

-- gail missouri ozarks (gef@getgoin.net), February 10, 2002

Answers

My only advice would be to have on hand some disposable exam gloves, shoulder length, which your vet can give you. Also anytime I do an internal exam after a birthing, I always insert an iodine or nolvason bolus to help prevent introducing infection, also available from your vet.

-- Kate henderson (kate@sheepyvalley.com), February 10, 2002.

Gail, the perfect time to learn is with a doe you know well. Inserting your fingers into the doe will show you a closed cervics at the end of her pregnancy. Once she is in labor, and the first part of labor is really nothing more than her starring off into space during contractions, and you can see her belly get hard, will show you, with your hand inside, the cervic thinning and the ridges disappearing. Once she begins to push you can check for presentation and don't let a kid come into the birth canal with a leg back or head back. Perfect presentation makes for a much eaiser birth. Once that kid has been born you can wait a few minutes, but if she doesn't get back to the process then insert your hand again, the pressure of your hand on her cervic will cause her to push, you can feel for other kids, or if it is just placenta then leave her. You can wear gloves if you want to, I don't with my own herd, I don't think you can feel as well with them on. Also the placenta cleans everything from the uterus, now if you were to check after the placenta, perhaps because you are doctoring a rip in the cervic than yes put her on antibitotics. A lot of folks are so squimish about helping that they allow the doe to push and push, jamming the kids up so much at the cervic that if the first kid has any kind of mal-presentation it is nearly impossible to push it all back, to retrieve the first kid! Like I said, look at your hand and arm, and look at a newborn, no way unless your are Rambo your hand is bigger than an infant kid, you aren't going to hurt anything feeling for yourself, do it cleanly, nails short, no jewlery and just like with you, in and up. We don't put does on antibitoics after being AI'd and there isn't anything more invassive than that! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), February 11, 2002.