Birthing Questions

[Goat Whisperer]

That article is a wealth of knowledge! That is something you may want to print and save so you can get to it quickly.

Ok! I'm perfectly fine with that since the five goats we have so far, we got as bottle babies and I was planning on making them bottle babies as well!

The biggest thing I'm worried about is the screaming.... I won't be able to stand listening to her cry for her kids and would probably cave and give them back. So I will keep that in mind!
I was just worried because I know for the first few days, colostrum is super important, so I would want them to be drinking it as much as possible, but I suppose getting fed with bottles a few times a day would be plenty! Thanks.

Screaming isn't much of an issue when the doe never gets to see/hear/smell/ the kid, especially for a FF. It is best to have 2 people present when she goes to kid, 1 for keeping the doe calm and the other to whisk the kid away. If you are going to be the one who milks the doe, you should probably stay with her until everything is over. It is best to take the kid into the house and clean it off so the doe won't hear it baa. Whoever is going to clean the kid needs to be researching how to clean the kid thoroughly. You want to make sure the kid doesn't aspirate any fluid. Whoever cleans them is going to have to suction the nose, mouth and possibly swing them by the hind legs so all the fluid comes out.

I can honestly say that I only trust one person other then myself (and the LGD's) when it comes to cleaning the kids. I want to make sure NOTHING gets in the lungs. Maybe I'm just overprotective of my 'kids'

 

[Calendula]

Yes, that article is marvelous. Thanks very much!

Hmm... I guess I'll have to try and make sure that someone is there so that we can remove the kid.... Oh, I don't know. I guess we'll decide within time.

Also, update, the breeder started feeding our goat grain while she was over there and told my parents that she needs to gain more weight before she gives birth and that she must be on grain and she has to be on this brand of grain or else it could be very detrimental for her health. And of course, my parents won't listen to me. Or the vet who has always been impressed with how healthy our goats are.
On top of that, she told us to give her (she's a little Nigerian Dwarf) one-two cups of feed TWICE a day. Am I wrong, or is that an outrageous amount for her tiny little self?
I've managed to talk my parents into only giving her about half a cup once a day.... But they want to give it to all of the goats now.
Opinions on how much I should feed a goat a day? And what kind of grain would be the best?
The only reason I don't really trust this is that the breeder has had birthing problems with all of her goats every year. Every single one of them has some problems.

 

[Goat Whisperer]

You can still have very sweet friendly kids that are dam raised, just make sure you spend time with them

Feeding a Nigerian DWARF 4 cups of feed (assuming you mean the 8oz kitchen measure for baking) is crazy. If the doe is in really of that bad of condition, the owner of the buck should have simply refused for the doe to be bred.

Can you snap some pics of them and post them? If they are skinny you may want to grain them but not at 4 cups daily.

What are they currently on? Hay? grain? mineral?
How much/what kind?
What type of feed does owner of the buck think they should be on?
What are the ages, breed, and weight of your goats?
If your vet a GOAT vet?
His opinions?

Hoping you can convince your parents that feeding that much grain is unhealthy! Losing a doe because the kids are to big is awful The costs of a C-section is very expensive and it seems to be hit or miss if the doe recovers.

 

[Southern by choice]

I can't imagine feeding my Nigies that much food. 2 cups 2x a day is more than our does eat on the stand while in milk.

I put something up for you on my journal.
http://www.backyardherds.com/thread...journal-update-10-18.31367/page-6#post-403819

 

[Calendula]

Thanks, Southern. All of your goats are so beautiful!

I knew it was too much... I read somewhere a while back to cut a Pepsi bottle in half and use the lower half as a measuring cup. It seemed like enough for them.
My other problem with her feeding system was that she just threw it all into two feeding pans and let the goats have at it. That would worry me so much because of goats getting too much.... If I end up going with grain, I'll have to come up with some way to make sure everyone gets the right amount. That was easy when I had two, but five...

Anyway, to those questions, Goat Whisperer!

I'll get some pics of them tomorrow. I know they aren't underweight because my girl's sister was there and they were the same size. Actually, I think mine was a little bit stockier, but that might have been a trick of the light since it was dark out.... Either way, she was NOT very small.
The three kids we got this year I'm pretty sure are on the small side, but I think that's because we didn't give them grain and we weaned them off milk a lot sooner.... Kind of regretting that now. It might be nice to get those three on grain going into the winter.

Currently, they are given two flakes of hay and are let out of their pen to graze whenever we're outside, where they eat mainly leaves from our birch tree and stuff from our pasture. They also have a goat mineral block in their pen. (I want to switch to loose minerals, but I'll have to wait until this block is gone). I'm thinking I should probably be giving them more hay... there's five goats, two who are a year and a half and then three that are about six months.... I have not been feeding them any grain because I feel like the cons of potentially overfeeding them outweigh the pros, but I wouldn't mind getting them on some healthier substitute.
The owner of the buck (she's also the lady we got all five goats from, so she's been our go-to goat expert until I found this site. I like having more opinions.) thinks she should be on this custom grain mix that a guy makes around here. He's also the guy we get our chicken food from and we had a brief scare thinking that his grain was the reason one of her goats ended up with polio (at the time, we were still feeding ours the same grain), but the vet said it wasn't because there were tons of other goat people and hers was the only case of polio.... Anyway, that was a reason I took them off of the grain.
Let's see.... We have a Nigerian Dwarf wether and then the doe who is being bred that are a year and a half old, and then another ND wether and doe who are six months, and then our last goat is a mix - she's mostly Nigerian Dwarf, but has some Fainting Goat in her.... I'm not positive on their weights. I would say the older ones are probably fifty-sixty pounds (I'm going off my own estimate. I'll weigh them tomorrow.), and the other three are probably... twenty pounds. They're tiny.
Yeah, he's a goat vet. Well, he does other animals, too, but when we did some 4-H stuff, all of the other goat people also used him, and I think he had goats at some point.
We haven't talked to him about her being pregnant, but the last time he came out, we asked him if our two older ones were overweight. He said no and told us to keep doing what we were doing.

I wouldn't mind adding some supplements, but I would prefer something more natural and not as fattening as grain is, but I can't really figure out a good one...

 

[OneFineAcre]

Right now we are feeding our does 2 1/2 quarts in the morning and again in the afternoon.
For 16 that works out to .625 cups each feeding for a total of 1.25 cups per day.
So, ours are getting 1 - 1/4 cup of feed per day.
That's how we feed ours all the time. Even now when most are bred.
When they are getting milked they get more when they are on the milk stand.

With that said, I've never had a birthing problem related to a kid being too large. The only birthing problems we've ever had are related to bad presentation, like a rump first breach.

We've had singles over 5 lbs, but I don't think that is too large. The biggest single we ever had was close to 6lbs and the doe had no issues whatsoever giving birth.
We had twins this year that both weighed like 4 -12 ozs. Most of our twins weigh in the 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 lb range.

 

[Calendula]

@OneFineAcre So I shouldn't worry too much about the possibility of kids that are too big? Do you think I should start feeding her grain?

 

[OneFineAcre]

@OneFineAcre So I shouldn't worry too much about the possibility of kids that are too big? Do you think I should start feeding her grain?

No that's not what I was saying.
I don't think you should feed 4 cups a day, like the others said.
The others don't feed their pregnant does any feed at all. I do, but not nearly that much.
That's all I was saying

 

[Calendula]

@Goat Whisperer Alright, they aren't the BEST pictures (it was difficult and a bit early in the morning), but I did get some. If you can't really tell if they look too small or something, I can try and get some better pictures later.... Thanks...

This is the doe that we took to get bred. She's a year and a half.

Her again with the wether that is the same age.

And the three kids from this year. They're about seven months old now.

I thought this picture might help compare the younger ones with the older ones...

 

[Calendula]

No that's not what I was saying.
I don't think you should feed 4 cups a day, like the others said.
The others don't feed their pregnant does any feed at all. I do, but not nearly that much.
That's all I was saying

Ok, I thought so.... Definitely not going to do 4 cups with these little guys.... I'm thinking I might just do half a cup to stay on the safe side. Thanks.