Misfitmorgan's - Babies 2020

[misfitmorgan]

I quit trying to figure out some of the personalities. We have a bunch that are as tame as our house dogs and a few that will run if you just look at them.

Good idea!

 

[misfitmorgan]

Ok so Phoebe had her kids yesterday.

Twins of course

Twin boys of course

They seem healthy though and she was being her normal good mom self. She didnt seem to have any trouble as they were both freshly born when we got to them and she was busy cleaning them off. I didn't get pictures but i will. One is a traditional marked with the cape, the other is a solid and looks like big boy. The traditional marked red kid is the only traditional red boer we own, which is kinda odd since its the most common coat/marking.

Big Boy is solid red
Phoebe is red roan (i looked it up lol)
Latte is traditional but with a cream head instead of red
Espresso is traditional with a black head

 

[misfitmorgan]

Latte and Espresso may or may not be bred...some days they look it other days they dont.

White mutt definitely look round enough to be bred.
Small Brown mutt always looks round so not sure on her.
Sweetie def looks bred.
308 does not look bred but 308 didnt look bred last year and lambed mid-june.
294 may not be bred, she looks to thin to be carrying even though i watched her get mounted many times by both of our rams and then even the mutt ram later on.

Next year I definitely want more control over who lambs/kids when.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Question....

Has anyone ever had a goat or lamb that could not maintain their body temperature? Phoebe's kids don't seem to be able too. Yesterday it was 47F here and rainy, when we got home DH found the Red cape buck near death and ice cold and his brother not to far behind him. After 8 hrs of working on the red cape buck and him never warming up despite all attempts, DH breathed for him for 30 minutes, and tube feeding several times, he died. He was not really right, so i thought ok maybe we just got to him to late and his organs were already shutting down. His brother responded perfectly fine to tube feeding and his mouth got "warm", he did not walk around or want to nurse. As long as he was by something giving him heat, us, hair dryer box, kid, dogs, he seemed to be in no immediate danger and we thought he was past the hump. I went to bed at 12.30am he was fine I thought so i took the heat off him and left him in a box overnight. Fast forward to 4.30am when we woke up and he was flat on his side ice cold and barely showing signs of life...this is in a house that was 72-74F. DH tubed him again and I put him back in the hair dryer box to warm up, when i had to leave for work he was showing improvement but I doubt he will be alive when i get home.

This is the most insane thing i have ever seen, its like they can not maintain or create their own temperature despite reasonable or very good conditions. Anyone else seen this before?
@Goat Whisperer @Southern by choice @OneFineAcre Anyone else?

 

[Southern by choice]

How old are the kids?
Just an FYI, never feed a cold goat. They cannot digest the food. No tube feeding, no bottle nothing. They must be warmed up before attempting to feed.
A dab of nutridrench /sugars on the tongue would be better.

If being dam raised I would suspect the dam is not feeding them adequately. They are getting chilled somehow.
I'll ask more when I know their age.

 

[misfitmorgan]

How old are the kids?
Just an FYI, never feed a cold goat. They cannot digest the food. No tube feeding, no bottle nothing. They must be warmed up before attempting to feed.
A dab of nutridrench /sugars on the tongue would be better.

If being dam raised I would suspect the dam is not feeding them adequately. They are getting chilled somehow.
I'll ask more when I know their age.

They were less then 24hrs old when we found them yesterday. We saw zero evidence of them having been fed but not for lack of the dam trying, she kept trying to shove them back by her udder. We did do corn syrup on their tongue/gums several times. The one who was doing less worse didnt get tube fed until his mouth felt warm. The other one it was the last ditch efforts over several hours because he was showing zero improvement. We tubed the one who was still alive this morning because we had to leave for work and he had had no food other then 50ML of colostrum over 12hrs before then and we wouldnt be home for another 9 hrs. I'm just trying to figure out why they can't seem to make heat or stay warm, they were completely dry and had outside sources of heat applied for hours. The one who is still alive had a warm mouth last night but seems he couldnt keep his temp. Neither of them would nurse at all, when first born they were trying and they seemed like normal kids. We did see them both appear to latch on after about 45 minutes but i dont think they actually drank any milk. Things seem to have gone wrong night before last when they were only a few hours old.

It was around 40F out, they had a heat lamp, clean dry bedding, and a stall alone with their dam. The red cape one who died after 8 hrs of work, kept having eye tremors so DH thought something must be neurologically wrong maybe from getting so hypothermic? I'm really at a loss.

 

[Baymule]

I don't even know what to say. I don't have the experience to offer advice. I wish I did and could offer something encouraging.

 

[misfitmorgan]

We lost the second kid on friday night. I still don't know what was wrong. DH thought maybe white muscle disease but the symptoms dont fit and it doesnt make sense with them having all they can eat loose mineral access.

A lack of minerals/vitamins in general doesn't seem likely. Everyone was treated with corid a few weeks ago, could that cause a problem?

I'm at a loss, I've just never heard of anyone having this problem and can not find any info on it. I even called the vet and asked her and she didnt know either, she suggested bringing the kid in would NOT be helpful. She said because first off she didn't know of anything that caused those symptoms and secondly she thought he was to far gone to recover by the signs he was showing which I sadly agreed with. This vet is a realist and she has worked with livestock for a long long time, she shares our same view. It would be wonderful to be able to treat and save all animals but with livestock it often isnt feasible, esp with animals ment for the meat market. We can not realistically put several hundred dollars into a goat kid when our return would be $150 at absolute best and more likely at this time of year about $75. Our farm like most just could not support that, esp atm.

 

[mysunwolf]

Sometimes the selenium in the mineral doesn't get absorbed properly, and low selenium can cause "unthriftiness," it doesn't have to be WMD. You could give BoSe to all adults before breeding, and consider worming about a month before kidding. I've noticed if the dams have high loads of parasites, even if they are tolerating it well and their eyelids look good, the lambs (in our case) come out weak and generally "unthrifty" as folks say.

Honestly, it also may have just been a fluke since it was only from one dam and you've never seen it before. I hear you on the finances, it just doesn't make sense to spend much on young or old ones especially. What might be a good idea is to see if your state has a free necropsy program and send the kids in for evaluation.

 

[misfitmorgan]

Sometimes the selenium in the mineral doesn't get absorbed properly, and low selenium can cause "unthriftiness," it doesn't have to be WMD. You could give BoSe to all adults before breeding, and consider worming about a month before kidding. I've noticed if the dams have high loads of parasites, even if they are tolerating it well and their eyelids look good, the lambs (in our case) come out weak and generally "unthrifty" as folks say.

Honestly, it also may have just been a fluke since it was only from one dam and you've never seen it before. I hear you on the finances, it just doesn't make sense to spend much on young or old ones especially. What might be a good idea is to see if your state has a free necropsy program and send the kids in for evaluation.

We did worm everyone about a month or month and a half ago, so I dont think that was a problem, ut it could have been. The dam seems very healthy, good appetite, good weight, good eye and gum color, good bowel movements, etc. It might be not enough selenium, but no one else is showing any signs of not getting enough. I used to keep selenium and vitamin E paste on hand to give kids or lambs if they were having a problem. I know we have 0.10-0.14 ppm of selenium so our soil.

I have checked on necropsy before, the only reply back i got was that they do free necropsy for tb or scrapie only. Good idea though.

I think whatever the problem was with those two kids will remain a mystery. This was the 7th and 8th kids from this dam and we have never lost one or ever had a problem with her kids, so this is really throwing me.