Latestarter's ramblings/musings/gripes and grumbles.

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Latestarter

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Well, I'm sure glad they kidded when they did... hope the rest can hold off a week. I have to go get more pine chips for their shelter and clean out the afterbirth and stuff. Humidity dropped back to 60% but that's only because the temp went up above 80 and the sun came out. Nice day for kid deliveries.
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Latestarter

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So I have a bit of a "situation" here... When I first got down there Dot was laying in a corner of the shelter with a 2 newborn kids at her backside and Bang standing over the top of her nosing the babies... At first I thought they were both Dots so led Bang away. Then I noticed that Bang had delivered as well, so one had to be hers. I saw the newest delivery was for sure Dots and was grayish while the other was black so removed the black one to give it to Bang. Shortly thereafter Bang delivered her 2nd and it too was blackish so I know I guessed correctly as to which ones belong with which. Dot's 2nd that I helped deliver was also grayish.

So both moms are cleaning each others kids, and both sets seem to prefer nursing off Bang, and she seems to be letting them. Dot's kids seem to be having issues finding and latching on to Dot's sausage teats (deja vue). Bang was so full that she was leaking from 1 side so I milked her 1/2 out and froze some and put some in a bottle to offer the kids. I then milked Dot 1/2 out, again to freeze some and to bottle it and attempted to feed her kids her milk. None would take the bottle... (damn baby goats :rant). Pretty sure I saw some of the kids latch onto Bang. So it appears I'm going to have another "interesting" start to kidding again this year. Not sure I really want a bunch of bottle babies. I still have at least 2 more does to go and possibly 3. This all started around 3pm and I spent till almost 9 pm out there with them. I kept giving the kids back to their proper moms but I don't know that it's working. Guess time will tell. Maybe Bang is going to steal all 4 of them. I guess as long as they're all getting enough to eat, no biggie for me... I'll be able to milk Dot for me.

Both does stood nicely for me to milk them. Bang still has tiny teats and is slow to milk. Dot has huge teats and when stretched taught full, it's hard to get a grip high enough to get a good pull, but once she's down a bit, she's a joy. I had forgotten how thick and sticky colostrum is.

I got 2 bags of pine chips and dug out 6 wheel barrows full of soggy matted mess (the top was dry) from inside the shelter and put down fresh new shavings. The goats seem to appreciate it. Soon as I was done, they promptly pissed in it... :confused:

I bought that fence clip tool Bruce, We'll see when I'll be able to give that a try. All depends on weather.

ETA, no 3rd kid from Dot. Iodine was liberally applied to all 4 cords.
 

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Sounds good.

A good high production doe can handle 4 kids... but she will need good feed.

It might be easier ... to have Bang take them all, IF you think she will produce enough.

Otherwise. .. any way you could segregate the two moms? So Dot is stuck with her 2 kids? And they can't go to Bang? Of course.... if Dot has teats too big for newborns to nurse on... you might have to help the kids latch on for the first few days until they grow a bit. A bunch of work for a few days... but it would mean no bottle babies.

I dunno :eek: .... depends on where you wanna chunk your time. :old
 
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