The stork brings active, healthy kids most of the time, thank goodness. There are some basic things we can do to help them into the world and start them off right.
Be prepared! Kidding shouldn't come as a surprise. A healthy start begins in clean, dry, freshly-bedded privacy with supervision to make sure everything goes OK. If it doesn't, it is very important to intervene before a situation becomes critical. When a healthy doe gives birth easily, and in a good environment, most neonatal problems are due to chilling, starvation and bacterial infections.
Get Kids Breathing
Some fetal membranes are very tough, and the kid arrives like a gift inside a balloon. Break the membrane so the kid can start breathing as soon as it is born. Rub its face with a towel for stimulation, and stick a piece of straw up its nostril to make it sneeze. You can pinch an ear or the tail to get a few good yells out of the newborn. A little sneezing and hollering helps inflate the lungs. If a kid has trouble clearing its airways, pick it up by the hind legs and hold it upside down for a few minutes. A dark red or purple color of the gums is a sign that the kid is has been oxygen deprived. This symptom resolves with time.
Protecting Against Germs
As an extra hygiene precaution, I place a clean towel behind the doe for each kid's arrival. No kid is allowed off of the towel until its navel is dipped in 7% iodine. This helps prevent serious bacterial infections in early life. Iodine should be applied to the entire cord up to and including the belly wall. Use a small container for the iodine, like a plastic film canister or a baby food jar. Lower the kid's umbilical cord into the iodine, hold the jar against its tummy, and turn the kid upside-down to coat the umbilicus. I like to repeat this procedure when the kids are about one hour old.
Chilling
Cold-weather delivery, dystocia, and hypoglycemia can all contribute to reduced body temperature in newborns. Chilled kids won't eat, nor will the mother want them to. Hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) can develop because the kid won't eat. These conditions are usually avoided if the kid eats soon after birth. Chilled kids are lethargic and depressed. Feel the temperature inside the kid's mouth with your finger. If it feels cool, artificial heat must be used to raise its temperature to 102o F.
You are only 98.6 degrees, and it's impossible to warm a kid sufficiently inside your coat. Place the kid in a cardboard box and wrap a heating pad (medium heat setting) around it. If you can't get the pad around the whole kid, lay the kid on top of it. Cover the kid with towels to retain the heat. Thirty to sixty minutes of supplemental heat should do the trick. When the kid's temperature approaches normal, it should become more active and alert and display interest in finding something to eat. Electrical cords are very hazardous - don't leave the mother goat alone in the same area with the heating pad, or she may bite into it and electrocute herself.
Hypoglycemia and Starvation
Kids are born with very limited energy reserves in the form of brown fat. They must eat soon after birth - the sooner the better. Without food in the tummy, body temperature goes down and the kid becomes hypoglycemic. Without your help, the kid's condition will advance to depression, lethargy, coma and death. The best way to prevent this is to make sure the kid eats as soon after birth as possible.
A keratin plug in the streak canal of each teat is nature's way of protecting the udder against bacterial invasion. Remove the keratin plugs by milking one or two streams of colostrum out of each teat to be sure milk is readily available.
Colostrum is the thick, yellow "first milk" present in the udder when the doe gives birth. It is rich in maternal antibodies that protect kids against disease during the first few weeks of life. Kids absorb colostral antibodies through the intestinal lining. The body's ability to assimilate these antibodies begins to decline within two hours of birth. By the time a kid is 24 hours old, the gut can no longer absorb the large molecule antibodies.
After Day One
Because goats are relatively independent at birth, kids need to be socialized within the first four days to be tame and friendly. You will need to have their trust before you do all the rotten things to them listed below. The down side of friendly kids is that kids constantly swarm you and become proficient at untying shoelaces, or at least slobbering all over them, at very early ages. Handle them gently and often in those first few critical days.
Vaccinations need to be given at appropriate intervals, depending on your style of herd health management. Clostridium perfringens Types C & D and tetanus toxoid are the most essential of these. Some manufacturers combine these two, and that type of combination is called CD/T. Kids may need additional vaccines if the dam was not given prenatal shots three to four weeks before delivery. Talk with your veterinarian about giving injections of selenium if you are in an area of the country deficient in this trace mineral. Additional vaccines can be given for specific problems within a herd.
Timing Basic Vaccinations
Pregnant Does (30 days before due)
1 dose CD/T
All Adult Goats (annual)
1 dose CD/T
Kids from Immunized Does
1 dose CD/T @ 4 weeks
1 dose CD/T @ 8 weeks
1 dose CD/T @ 12 weeks
Kids from Non-Immunized Does
1 dose Tetanus Antitoxin @ birth
1 dose CD/T @ birth
1 dose Tetanus Antitoxin @ disbudding
1 dose CD/T @ 4 weeks
1 dose CD/T @ 8 weeks
Disbudding is much easier on kids from 7 to 14 days old than on older kids. The success rate, defined by regrowth of scurs, is very good when they are disbudded at this age by someone who is proficient at it.
Castration method and age varies with the herdsman's personal preference. I like to castrate at 10 to 12 weeks old, giving the plumbing a little extra time to grow, which may help to avoid urinary calculi. If you have success neutering at other ages, you have found the right answer for your herd.
Coccidia and worms can be very harmful. Young kids are very susceptible to these and external parasites because their internal and external tissues are tender and succulent. It is a good idea to deworm the doe on the day she gives birth to reduce the number of oocysts in the barn and on the premises. Toward the same objective, it is advisable to treat does in late gestation for coccidia. Length and timing of coccidia treatments in pregnant does depend on which product you use. As the kids grow, monitor coccidia and worms with fecal analysis and treat them as needed. Regularly examine young kids for biting and sucking lice. Louse and tick powder labeled for cats is safe to use on young kids.
Food and Water
When there are too many goats for the amount of feeder space available, kids are the first to suffer. A separate area, called a creep feeder, can be situated in a corner with a feeder inside so the kids don't have to compete with adults for food. Kids often begin to pick at fine hay within a few days of birth and should have the best. A very small amount of grain can also be offered in the creep feeder or individually.
Like all goats, kids like to jump up on things, and they don't recognize the danger of a water bucket or trough. The first jump into one may well be the last. Use water troughs with vertical walls under 10". If they jump or get pushed in, they can get out. A death like this is a tragic and unnecessary loss.
Weaning
Kids should remain with their mothers until they are a minimum of 10 weeks old. The kid is born without a functional rumen and must be eating enough to sustain itself before weaning time. In these first weeks, the kid also begins to learn how to function within the herd. The stresses of weaning are great, as the kid is removed from her mother and the nutrition her milk has provided up to this point. Keep a close eye on internal parasites, as the kid can be quite prone to them during this stressful time. I never wean kids - they nurse until the mother gets sick and tired of them.
Many kids that seem to do poorly within the first few critical hours can be saved with a little extra attention. For their first three months of life, a good herd health program aimed at prevention paves the way to a darned good chance at a long, healthy life.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Maternal Rejection
Not every doe is a perfect model of motherhood. She may take one look at those soggy kids and take a hike.
Mothering ability is one of the most highly valued heritable traits in all breeding animals. Females with poor mothering performance may pass this trait to their offspring. We don't want to select for a trait that forces us to bottle feed all the kids these does have. There are strategies you can use to outwit bad moms and convince them into taking their kids the first time this happens. Hopefully, they will get the idea and continue to be good mothers for the rest of their lives.
Make sure the kid acts normal. That generally means normal body temperature, teat-seeking behavior and the right odor. The law of the jungle dictates that kids who don't act right don't live. In the wild, they would slow down the mother or the herd and make many others susceptible to predation. (Humans are the only species that foster defectives.)
Chilled kids don't act right, and they won't eat even if the mother is a very good one. The neonate's body temperature can decline within an hour of birth, depending on weather and whether or not the doe had trouble delivering. Chilled kids need to be warmed up to 102o F (verified with a rectal thermometer). Put a heating pad in a cardboard box and set it on medium. Set the kid on the heating pad and put bath towels over it to retain the heat. Do not cover its head. Stay with the kid to make sure that its mother does not bite the electrical cord - she can electrocute herself.
Aside from behavior, maybe a rejective mother's sense of smell clues her the kid is defective. Kids also may pick up a strange odor when they are towel-dried if you use fabric softener. When one of my angora does attacked her son, I picked him up for a cuddle and realized that he smelled just like my laundry. Forget your squeamishness and pick up a big, gooey gob of placenta or amniotic fluid and rub it on the kid's head, back and especially its bottom. If that doesn't work well enough, a little Vicks VapoRub or peppermint extract on the doe's muzzle are good odor blockers.
Do you wear a lot of perfume? Does identify their offspring primarily by smell, at least for the first few days. Watch them smell bottoms every time the kids nurse. The kid who tries to sneak a sip from anyone besides his mom usually gets clobbered! Many dams are even fussy about which kid nurses which half of her udder. (I'm sure they name these Right Baby and Left Baby.) Use perfume judiciously for the first few days or of letting heavy Avon users fondle your kids.
Difficult births may result in rejection. Take the placenta or some of the birth fluids and smear it all over the doe's nose and in and around her mouth. Often, her first few licks of it will elicit a positive mothering response. Most reluctant mothers get the idea and begin talking to and licking the kids. Pain medication will make her feel better (no aspirin!) and may get her back in the swing of things more quickly. (Consult your veterinarian about the use of analgesics!)
Sometimes a doe butts her newborn away or attacks it even more viciously. She can be encouraged to accept it. Build a small enclosure by nailing a short length of 1" x 10" wood planking in a corner to confine the kid (18" - 24" high for dairy goats). This allows her to see and smell the kid without doing it harm. Put mother and kids together for short periods while monitoring them, and separate them again if mom's attitude is still poor. This may take up to several days.
A stanchion can be very helpful during rejection. Lock the mother into the stanchion and plug the kid in to her udder. Make sure it nurses all it wants. Repeat this about four times a day. When the mother's smell comes through the baby's bottom, she may well accept it. This is particularly helpful if the kid has been given colostrum or milk from a source other than the mother.
It is rather rare for rejection to occur after the bonding process has taken place. This might be due to a kid who acts abnormally, although it would have to be pretty doggoned strange, or that a kid has been nursing another doe and picked up her smell. I've also heard of certain mothers who prefer one gender over another.
Here's to great maternal behavior and strong, healthy kids. But if you don't have one or the other, be patient and some of these suggestions ought to help. Many of these tricks also work to graft an orphan onto a surrogate mother. Good luck!
Mothering ability is one of the most highly valued heritable traits in all breeding animals. Females with poor mothering performance may pass this trait to their offspring. We don't want to select for a trait that forces us to bottle feed all the kids these does have. There are strategies you can use to outwit bad moms and convince them into taking their kids the first time this happens. Hopefully, they will get the idea and continue to be good mothers for the rest of their lives.
Make sure the kid acts normal. That generally means normal body temperature, teat-seeking behavior and the right odor. The law of the jungle dictates that kids who don't act right don't live. In the wild, they would slow down the mother or the herd and make many others susceptible to predation. (Humans are the only species that foster defectives.)
Chilled kids don't act right, and they won't eat even if the mother is a very good one. The neonate's body temperature can decline within an hour of birth, depending on weather and whether or not the doe had trouble delivering. Chilled kids need to be warmed up to 102o F (verified with a rectal thermometer). Put a heating pad in a cardboard box and set it on medium. Set the kid on the heating pad and put bath towels over it to retain the heat. Do not cover its head. Stay with the kid to make sure that its mother does not bite the electrical cord - she can electrocute herself.
Aside from behavior, maybe a rejective mother's sense of smell clues her the kid is defective. Kids also may pick up a strange odor when they are towel-dried if you use fabric softener. When one of my angora does attacked her son, I picked him up for a cuddle and realized that he smelled just like my laundry. Forget your squeamishness and pick up a big, gooey gob of placenta or amniotic fluid and rub it on the kid's head, back and especially its bottom. If that doesn't work well enough, a little Vicks VapoRub or peppermint extract on the doe's muzzle are good odor blockers.
Do you wear a lot of perfume? Does identify their offspring primarily by smell, at least for the first few days. Watch them smell bottoms every time the kids nurse. The kid who tries to sneak a sip from anyone besides his mom usually gets clobbered! Many dams are even fussy about which kid nurses which half of her udder. (I'm sure they name these Right Baby and Left Baby.) Use perfume judiciously for the first few days or of letting heavy Avon users fondle your kids.
Difficult births may result in rejection. Take the placenta or some of the birth fluids and smear it all over the doe's nose and in and around her mouth. Often, her first few licks of it will elicit a positive mothering response. Most reluctant mothers get the idea and begin talking to and licking the kids. Pain medication will make her feel better (no aspirin!) and may get her back in the swing of things more quickly. (Consult your veterinarian about the use of analgesics!)
Sometimes a doe butts her newborn away or attacks it even more viciously. She can be encouraged to accept it. Build a small enclosure by nailing a short length of 1" x 10" wood planking in a corner to confine the kid (18" - 24" high for dairy goats). This allows her to see and smell the kid without doing it harm. Put mother and kids together for short periods while monitoring them, and separate them again if mom's attitude is still poor. This may take up to several days.
A stanchion can be very helpful during rejection. Lock the mother into the stanchion and plug the kid in to her udder. Make sure it nurses all it wants. Repeat this about four times a day. When the mother's smell comes through the baby's bottom, she may well accept it. This is particularly helpful if the kid has been given colostrum or milk from a source other than the mother.
It is rather rare for rejection to occur after the bonding process has taken place. This might be due to a kid who acts abnormally, although it would have to be pretty doggoned strange, or that a kid has been nursing another doe and picked up her smell. I've also heard of certain mothers who prefer one gender over another.
Here's to great maternal behavior and strong, healthy kids. But if you don't have one or the other, be patient and some of these suggestions ought to help. Many of these tricks also work to graft an orphan onto a surrogate mother. Good luck!
Bottle Feeding Kids
A kid should get 15% of its body weight per day, divided into 3-4 feedings timed about equally apart. He should take equal amounts each time if you feed him at regular intervals, not just when he seems to want a bottle. Here is a general chart of amounts I use:
Birth to 2 weeks: 3 ounces, 4 times/day (12 oz. total)
2 to 6 weeks: 4 ounces, 4 times/day (16 oz. total)
6 to 12 weeks: 5 ounces, 4 times/day (20 oz. total)
Yellow stool is common at this age due to the milk diet. The feces will become brown as the kid starts eating hay. Kids can be weaned at 10-12 weeks if they are eating sufficient roughage (hay) and chewing a cud. When fine-stemmed grass hay and fresh water are available all the time from about one week of age, he should begin to eat and drink. Do not exceed the daily milk amounts or he will not consume the hay or water he needs to develop his rumen.
Fresh goat milk is ideal for kids, but it should be pasteurized if you don't know the disease status of the herd providing the milk. Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis Virus (CAEV) and Johne's disease are very harmful, and kids can become infected from drinking even a tiny amount of unpasteurized milk that contains these organisms.
Tips for bottle feeding:
Birth to 2 weeks: 3 ounces, 4 times/day (12 oz. total)
2 to 6 weeks: 4 ounces, 4 times/day (16 oz. total)
6 to 12 weeks: 5 ounces, 4 times/day (20 oz. total)
Yellow stool is common at this age due to the milk diet. The feces will become brown as the kid starts eating hay. Kids can be weaned at 10-12 weeks if they are eating sufficient roughage (hay) and chewing a cud. When fine-stemmed grass hay and fresh water are available all the time from about one week of age, he should begin to eat and drink. Do not exceed the daily milk amounts or he will not consume the hay or water he needs to develop his rumen.
Fresh goat milk is ideal for kids, but it should be pasteurized if you don't know the disease status of the herd providing the milk. Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis Virus (CAEV) and Johne's disease are very harmful, and kids can become infected from drinking even a tiny amount of unpasteurized milk that contains these organisms.
Tips for bottle feeding:
- Milk temperature is very important. Use a thermometer to make sure the milk is right at 102 F.
- Hold the bottle to approximate the position of the mother's teat.
- It might help to get a plastic baby bottle (I use Even-Flo) so that you can squeeze a little milk into her mouth.
- It also helps to use a cross-cut nipple so the milk comes out a easier than from one tiny hole.
- Feed Probios to get the rumen working and offer water and hay at all times.
- Use a "surrogate" mother to trick a relunctant bottle baby into nursing. 1) Warm the bottle and take the bottle and the kid to the barn. 2) Clip a doe's collar to the fence so she can't move her head. 3) Have someone else hold her hind legs so she can't stomp the kid. 4) Put the baby by the doe's udder, and she should be eager to nurse something she recognizes. 5) Let the kid nurse very briefly. 6) Hold the doe's teat back and put the bottle in its place, with the bottle nipple where the teat should be. This should fool the kid, and she will probably nurse the bottle. Once they get the feel of the bottle, they usually start taking the bottle.
Neonatal Hypothermia
Newborns can become hypothermic (subnormal body temperature) very soon after birth, even in the summer when you don't expect it. Cold kids get depressed and are unwilling to nurse or even get up and move around. Test the inside of the kid's mouth with a finger. If it feels cool, the kid must be warmed artificially until its rectal temperature reaches 102o F. Time is of the essence!
A difficult birth, cold weather, a wet coat, inability to nurse due to plugged teats, and congenital defects are all probable causes. With the possible exception of certain birth defects, the kid can be warmed to get it off to to a good start.
Sticking the kid inside your coat will not warm it enough - your body temperature is to low. Lay the kid on a heating pad, turn it to medium heat, and cover all but the kid's head with several layers of bath towels. Rising heat will warm the kid throughout. Periodically monitor the kid's temperature and stick your hand between the kid and the heating pad from time to time to see that the heating pad isn't too hot. Make sure the mother doesn't chew on the electric cord - it could electrocute her. Heating this way usually takes about an hour.
Another way to warm a kid is to use a hair dryer. You can make a warming box by cutting a neck hole for the kid's head to stick out of the box. Cut the hole in the top edge of the box - you'll turn it upside-down over the kid so its body is inside the box and the head is outside. In the bottom of the tox, cut a hole large enough to accept the nozzle of the hair dryer. It isn't necessary for the warm air to blow directly on the kid, as the upside-down box will hold in the warmth.
An optional method is to surround the kid with milk bottles filled with warm water. These require more constant attention and periodic refreshing when they cool off.
To try to avoid chilled kids, dry the kid as completely as possible as soon after birth as possible. A wet coat and cool air combine to reduce body heat very quickly. Unplug both of the does' teats as the kids are born to make sure they have ready access to colostrum.
Heat lamps are not recommended for warming kids. By the time you get the heat lamp close enough to raise body temperature, you risk burning the kid, its mother, and setting the barn on fire.
A difficult birth, cold weather, a wet coat, inability to nurse due to plugged teats, and congenital defects are all probable causes. With the possible exception of certain birth defects, the kid can be warmed to get it off to to a good start.
Sticking the kid inside your coat will not warm it enough - your body temperature is to low. Lay the kid on a heating pad, turn it to medium heat, and cover all but the kid's head with several layers of bath towels. Rising heat will warm the kid throughout. Periodically monitor the kid's temperature and stick your hand between the kid and the heating pad from time to time to see that the heating pad isn't too hot. Make sure the mother doesn't chew on the electric cord - it could electrocute her. Heating this way usually takes about an hour.
Another way to warm a kid is to use a hair dryer. You can make a warming box by cutting a neck hole for the kid's head to stick out of the box. Cut the hole in the top edge of the box - you'll turn it upside-down over the kid so its body is inside the box and the head is outside. In the bottom of the tox, cut a hole large enough to accept the nozzle of the hair dryer. It isn't necessary for the warm air to blow directly on the kid, as the upside-down box will hold in the warmth.
An optional method is to surround the kid with milk bottles filled with warm water. These require more constant attention and periodic refreshing when they cool off.
To try to avoid chilled kids, dry the kid as completely as possible as soon after birth as possible. A wet coat and cool air combine to reduce body heat very quickly. Unplug both of the does' teats as the kids are born to make sure they have ready access to colostrum.
Heat lamps are not recommended for warming kids. By the time you get the heat lamp close enough to raise body temperature, you risk burning the kid, its mother, and setting the barn on fire.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)