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RAISING HEALTHY KIDS
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BIRTH
Kidding season is a time of miracles. Every time a new kid enters this world, I feel a surge of excitement and wonder. For many new goat owners this also means worry and fear. Most fear comes from reading too many books and articles detailing everything that can go wrong at this time. Problems do arise from time to time, but you may go to your goat pen only to find that your doe has already given birth without your help.
Average gestation time for goats is 145 to 155 days. Start checking your does 140 days after breeding. When she gets close to kidding, she will become nervous and friendlier than usual. There may be a discharge of mucus for several days before kidding.
Within a few days of kidding, her udder may swell. Known as "bagging up", this is not a sure thing, since some udders don't swell with milk until after the kids are born. Just before birth, the kids will move back toward the birth canal and the doe's flanks will appear more sunken as her kids shift in preparation for birth.
When she becomes restless and repeatedly paws the ground, lying down, then standing up, you know kidding time is near. It's time to move her to an individual stall for kidding and put down clean bedding. Also, keep the water bucket outside the pen. It can be dangerous for newborns and she won't be interested in drinking at this point anyway.
PREVENTING INFECTION AT BIRTH
When the fetal membrane appears, do not break it. It will break on its own and the fluid will spill out. The first thing you should see is a pair of hooves. Then you should see a little nose resting on the hooves. You might see two hooves and no nose. The kid could be coming out back legs first. If you decide to help, make sure both feet belong to the same kid before you pull too hard. Only one kid can come out at a time and you could injure the doe if you aren't careful.
Usually, the doe will sever the umbilical cord herself. Dry the kids off with an old towel for stimulation and then disinfect the umbilical cord. Spray or dip it in extra-strength iodine.
Watch for the afterbirth and dispose of it. The doe might try to eat it. This is natural. It's won't hurt the goat, but it won't do her much good, either. Besides, she could choke. If the doe doesn't pass the afterbirth within several hours, call a veterinarian. If it's just hanging outside of the doe, leave it be. Don't pull on it because it may still be attached and if you injure her, she could bleed to death.
Stay with the doe until you're sure she's had all her kids. What a tragedy it would be to come back later to find that one kid died while she was taking care of another.
Afterwards, give the doe a little special treatment for all her hard work. A handful of raisins or some grain or oatmeal is good. Feed her as usual, but don't worry if she doesn't eat right away. She will be tired. Give her time to rest. Also, give her a bucket of warm water. Water is needed to produce milk and she will undoubtedly be thirsty soon.
COLD WEATHER DELIVERY
In cold weather, reduced body temperatures can be a problem 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. The kid needs to eat soon after birth. Chilled kids are lethargic and sleepy-eyed. Check the temperature inside the kid's mouth with your finger. If it feels cool, you need to raise its temperature to 102° F.
Human body temperature is only 98.6° degrees so it's impossible to warm a kid sufficiently with your own body heat. Place the kid in a cardboard box and put a heating pad (medium heat setting) under it. Cover the kid with towels to retain the heat. In thirty minutes the kid 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.
The best cold-weather booster I know of is goat Nutri-Drench from BoviDr Laboratories. Give them 4 to 6 cc of Goat Nutri-Drench and within 30 minutes, they're on their feet looking for food. Nutri-Drench is a natural, high-energy source containing high vitamins, minerals, amino acids and glucose. These nutrients support life and quickly restore a non-functioning immune system. Feed and supplements normally require 8-14 hours for digestion. Nutri-Drench does not require digestion. It is the first and only oral supplement to rapidly absorb from the stomach directly to the bloodstream in minutes, while other sources of nutrition are still in the digestion process.
Goat Nutri-Drench is a rapidly available source of vitamins A, D and E for animals in need of additional nutrients. Dosage: At birth - 2 cc per 4 lbs body wt orally within the first 12 hours; Kids - 2 cc per 4 lbs body wt, repeat every 6 hrs as needed; Does - 30 cc per 100 lbs body wt, repeat in 12 hrs as needed.
KID INSPECTION
Examine the kids. Check for extra teats. Depending on the severity of the condition, a doe may be worthless as a milker. If the extra nipple is sufficiently separated from the main two, it may not interfere with milking. Bucks can also have double teats, and such animals should not be used for breeding.
DISBUDDING
Disbudding is much easier on kids from 7 to 14 days old. After the horns have grown long, removing them will be more difficult. Disbudding requires a disbudding iron and a box to hold the kid. To prevent infection, give the kid an injection of tetanus antitoxin (1 cc) under the skin. This is available from any farm store or veterinarian.
CASTRATION
If bucks will be slaughtered at a few months of age, castration is of little value. Sometimes it can even have a negative effect on growth because of stress caused by castration. If your bucklings will be raised longer than a few months, they should be castrated before weaning to avoid a "buck odor" in the meat. Use a 9-inch Elastrator to place a special, extra-strong rubber band over his testicles, making sure both testicles are together. Removing only one doesn't do much good.
This will make him a wether. A wether can't get does pregnant, so you don't have to separate them. A wether makes a better pet than a buck and is easier to handle. If you raise a wether for meat, he'll grow faster and taste better. Castrate the kid as soon as his testicles descend into his scrotum. These usually descend between 1 and 3 weeks old.
SCOURS
A kid's first bowel movement should be black and sticky. For the next week, it should be yellow and pasty. When it's about a week old, it starts dropping brown pellets. If it develops diarrhea instead, you need to determine what's causing it.
Scours is a common problem for bottle-fed kids. It can be caused by a variety of things, such as: chilling, erratic feeding, unclean conditions, overeating, low-quality milk replacers or internal parasites. In any case, rapid treatment is necessary to prevent death from dehydration.
Here is one suitable solution:
2 tsp. table salt
1 tsp. baking soda
½ cup white corn syrup
1 gallon warm water
Mix everything together well. If the kid is too weak to nurse use a syringe or stomach tube. Give 8 - 16 ounces per 10 lbs. body weight per day until scours disappear. Don't feed milk during this time.
Pepto-Bismol can be used to control diarrhea in kids under one month old. Use up to 2 cc every four to six hours for newborns; 5 cc over the same timeframe for kids approaching one month old. Be sure to follow up with oral ruminant gel (Probios) to repopulate the gut with vital live bacteria used for digestion. DO NOT USE Immodium AD to control diarrhea in goats, because it stops the peristaltic action of the gut and death is a likely result of its use.
COCCIDIA AND OTHER PARASITES
Scours in a three or four-week-old kid is likely due to coccidiosis. Coccidiosis is caused by microscopic parasites always present in the soil. A properly cared-for kid is exposed to these parasites gradually so it develops immunity to them.
A kid living in unclean conditions (crowded pens, filthy bedding, dirty water, etc.) is exposed to too many parasites at once. The body can't cope. One sure sign of coccidiosis is diarrhea. Even if a kid recovers from coccidiosis, it may never grow strong and healthy.
Worms of various kinds are perhaps the most widespread and serious threat to caprine well-being. The list is quite long: bladder worms, brown stomach worms, coccidia, hookworms, liver flukes, lungworms, nodular worms, stomach worms, tapeworms, whipworms and more.
Be sure to deworm on a regular schedule and rotate the product used. Some types of worms can become immune to the same treatment used repeatedly. Moving goats often from one pasture or paddock to another can also help control reinfection.
Some good choices for deworming are:
IVOMEC SHEEP DRENCH 0.08% Solution is an over-the-counter product for eliminating stomach worms. Do not treat within 11 days of slaughter. This clear, oily liquid works best if used orally at a rate of 3 cc per 26 lbs body weight. Do not under-dose. Achieves a quicker "kill" via oral dosing. Clear dewormers do not kill tapeworms.
VALBAZEN is an over-the-counter dewormer of the "white" dewormer family. Causes abortion in pregnant does at certain points in the pregnancy (very high risk of abortion if used in first trimester of pregnancy). For safety, never use on pregnant does. Do not treat within 11 days of slaughter. Dosage is 1 cc per 25 lbs. bodyweight given orally. "White" dewormers are the only class of dewormers that kill tapeworms.
ALBON (or Sulfadimethoxine 12.5%, its generic equivalent) are the current drug of choice for treating Coccidiosis. Used in this strength, it can be given orally undiluted to kids at a rate of 3-5cc and to adults at a rate of 5-10cc, depending upon body weight. Mixing with drinking water as directed on the label is another option. Severely ill kids should be treated both individually and with medicated drinking water.
Regularly examine young kids for external parasites as well. Fleas and lice can cause a coat to look "mangy" and unkempt. Flea and tick powder for young cats is safe to use on young kids.
VACCINATIONS
FEEDING AND WEIGHT GAIN
If you decide to bottle-feed your new kids rather than letting it nurse from the doe, you have to feed them every few hours, even at night. The milk or milk replacer must be warm or the kid won't drink it. You have to wash and disinfect bottles and nipples after every feeding.
Bottle-fed kids don't grow as fast as nursing kids, but there are advantages to bottle-feeding. Bottle-fed kids are friendlier than nursing kids, which tend to be shy and skittish unless handled extensively.
Sometimes you have to bottle-feed because their mothers won't accept them. She may move away from them or butt them or even injure or kill her own offspring. A doe that will not accept her kids was probably herself raised on a bottle.
Another reason to bottle-feed kids is to avoid spreading the Caprine Arthritis Encephalitis (CAE) virus. There is no cure for CAE and no prevention except to break the cycle.
When a kid is born, only one of its four stomach chamber is functioning - the abomasum. Over the next few days, the stomach chambers continue developing. Watch a young goat sucking. It stretches out its neck to get the milk. Due to the stretching process the milk goes past a slit in the esophagus, bypassing the first two stomach chambers and ending up in the omasum. There it mixes with digestive fluids and is passed to the fourth stomach - the abomasum.
Contrast this with a pan-fed kid, especially one fed only two or three times a day instead of four or five, and therefore is more hungry and greedy. First, it must bend down to drink rather than stretch upward. Some of the milk spills through the slit in the food tube and falls into the first stomach, the rumen, where it doesn't belong. There is nothing else in this compartment, since milk is the only feed consumed. There is no bulk. Gas forms and scours are likely to result.
Strive to keep milk out of the rumen by proper feeding. Moreover, work to develop the rumen and reticulum the way they should be developed by encouraging the kid to eat roughage at an early age.
By the time it's a week old, it begins nibbling on hay, grain and grass. The more solid feed it eats, the more quickly the other three chambers develop. As soon as your kids start eating solid foods, make sure they have clean water to drink.
The rumen and reticulum together occupy about 30 percent of the stomach space of a young, milk-fed kid. At maturity, a well-developed doe has a rumen that occupies 80 percent of the stomach space and a reticulum that takes up 5 percent. The goat must have a well-developed rumen to function properly and requires a bulky diet to keep the rumen working properly. The rumen doesn't increase in size without proper stretching and development; therefore, early feeding of roughage is essential.
A young kid that is growing needs more nutrients than milk, hay and forage can provide. A dietary supplement containing grains and other nutrient-rich feeds is necessary. This supplement may be called goat feed, goat chow, goat ration or just grain. Because it is a concentrated source of nutrients, it is also called concentrate.
Feeding guidelines are only estimates, so use your own judgment. Even twins may require a slightly different amount of concentrate to grow at the same rate. Adjust concentrate according to two things: the quality of the roughage your kids eat and each kid's condition.
Let kids nibble on concentrate as soon as they are interested. Work up (a cup at a time) to 1 pound of concentrate per day by the time the kids are weaned. Weaned kids need 1-2 pounds per day. Feeding too much concentrate is a waste of money and makes goats unhealthy.
The average newborn kid weighs about 7 pounds. Doelings may weigh less, bucklings more. Triplets and quadruplets of course weigh less than twins or singles.
Weigh each kid at birth and track its progress. A kid should gain about 2-3 pounds a week in the first month. After that, it should gain about 10 pounds a month. At about 8 to 10 weeks most kids are no longer dependent on milk and should be weaned.
WEANING
Early development of the rumen is essential for later life. Most kids will be nibbling on hay or pasture by the time they're a week old. Hay or forage is more important than grain. Encourage that.
When milk consumption is limited to two pints a day, consumption of dry feed is encouraged. This increases body capacity with a corresponding increase in feed intake and digestion. Research has shown that at 2 months of age a weaned kid has a reticuloruminal capacity five times as large as a nursing kid of the same age.
Wean by weight, not by age. Your goal should be 2 to 2½ times the birth weight. This is usually 19 to 22 pounds. The primary factor should be whether or not the kid is consuming enough forage and grain to continue to grow and develop without milk.
Doelings are sexually mature as early as 3 or 4 months of age. They should not be bred at that stage of development. In most cases spring doelings that are well developed should weigh 75 to 80 pounds at 7 or 8 months of age and are ready to be bred, which means they'll kid at 1 year of age. Many people mistakenly hold back young does because "they look so small" or because 7 months seems so young. Don't worry. With proper nutrition, they'll produce healthy kids, and keep on growing themselves. With a good herd health program, all young doelings will produce fine young kids in the spring and the surge of excitement and wonder will repeat itself as a new crop of kids enters the world.
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