Searched the category, didn't find this one. Some recent questions made me wonder... As this was our first year (& our goats first year) for kiddings, I didn't know entirely what to expect. But none of our new moms ate the afterbirth. Is that normal? My dogs & cats have always disposed of them. I thought at the time that maybe leaving them was a goat thing, but now I'm wondering. I did think that their was a reason why most animals ate it, but all our moms seem to be doing fine without it. It's been 2-4 weeks since our kiddings.

-- Stormy in SC (tstorm@prtcnet.com), March 07, 2002

Answers

My goats eat theirs. It helps to keep them from hemorraging.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), March 07, 2002.

As far as we know now, the eating of the afterbirth is only so that predators do not detect as easily where they might find newborns. We have found no information indicating that there is any benefit other than that. All the goat raisers I know just remove the placenta from the area.

-- Dianne Wood - Woodland, WA (woodgoat@pacifier.com), March 07, 2002.

Someone once told me to prevent them from eating it as it may cause a bubble and choke them. Thoughts on this?

-- gita (gita@directcon.net), March 07, 2002.

Mine ate theirs every time, but why I don't know.

-- Sharon (chessyemailaddy@notreal.com), March 07, 2002.

Afterbirth- to eat or not to eat? That is the question.

Some do, some don't, it's all good.

Little Bit Farm

-- Little bit Farm (littlebit@farm.com), March 07, 2002.

We clean ours out of the pens after birthing is over. Isn't it some wild thing in goats to keep from other animals from finding them or giving them the needed food source in the wilds until they can leave their kids to get food for them themselves...Guess we'll never know for sure...

-- Helena (windyacs@ptdprolog.net), March 07, 2002.

Yes, it is all that, BUT, it also helps to keep them from hemorraging. Ask a midwife. One of the last ditch tricks for getting a woman to quit hemorraging during a home birth in a remote area, is to give her a small piece of the placenta to eat. Sometimes they make a milk shake out of it- more palatable. I know- yuck- but if your life depended on it, you might.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), March 07, 2002.

I saw a recipe in an old hippie cookbook once..."Afterbirth Soup". Um, actually, I guess I'd rather die, thanks. ;)

-- Shannon at Grateful Acres Animal Sanctuary (gratacres@aol.com), March 07, 2002.

I have ALSO heard that animal mothers ate the placenta to get rid of the evidence that she has given birth and that there are helpless babies around.

-- Terri (hooperterri@prodigy.net), March 07, 2002.

I'm a midwife, and don't know the technicalities of this, but had a friend once who gave birth in the mountains in a snowstorm, and her midwife made her eat a chunk of the plancenta and it stopped the hemorrhage. i have always tucked this story away, and as I sometimes do births a ways from a hospital, if I couldn't stop a hemorrhage, i would do this. The placenta is FULL of nutrients and iron. i don't know WHY it would stop a hemorrhage, but I would try it if I was desperate. i would NEVER have eaten one by choice (ugh) but it really is probably healthier than liver, which is a detoxifying organ of the body, so it would help to rapidly give nutrients to a depleted body.....

-- marcee (thathope@mwt.net), March 08, 2002.

First is the sissy girly answer. Of all the things I do with goats, it makes me gag to watch them eat it while it slings around in the bedding! Then comes the practical side of me. I have spent 5 months preparing this doe for an easy kidding with a good size rumen to start eating all the grain she is going to need to milk for 10 months, and still be in good flesh for showing. I am not going to let her fill her rumen with a big ole glob of meat :) that takes days to digest, which makes her not able to eat as much good grain and hay that she needs so she doesn't loose weight!

Yeah, I know! Not one thing natural about raising goats! We breed them to whom we want when we want, rip the kids away before they even see them, force them to milk great quantities of milk for way to long of time, udder them up to the point of bursting and strut them around a ring, then cringe at the milk loss we have the next week, get the production back where it needs to be just in time for another show! And now I won't even let the poor thing eat her placenta :) LOL Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), March 09, 2002.

Vicki- you really are a giggle and a half!!

-- Terri in NS (terri@tallships.ca), March 09, 2002.