Soooooo.....of course it didn't work out as planned.
January 8th was the coldest day in 25 years in Arkansas. Future Husband went out to the barn to check the does, and next thing I hear are two screaming baby kids. Momma had birthed them, half cleaned them, and was completely ignoring them. It was 14F at this point, no way they could stay in the barn, even with the heat lamps they were just too little.
I told him to go on to work ( last week of a construction job you dont want to miss), I'd stay home warm them up and try and get momma to nurse. She'd been a great mom last year (of course, she popped in february during 60F temps..) so I thought it be no problem. Got them all bundled on the heating pad, their temp when I started was around 95, too cold!
Finally got the bigger of the two boys up to temp and screaming for milk. Both had gotten too quiet and limp for me up to this point. I also had no car, so I called my dad and asked him to run to tractor supply, buy more heat lamps and colostrum replacer just in case.
Took little man out uber bundled in my coat. It was now about and hour later, sun was up, it was all of 19F. Etta was just in the birthing pen, chewing hay, drinking. She's apparently passed and eaten the afterbirth already. I pinched the baby to make him scream more, and she immediately started screaming back. Good Sign!
I tried for fiften minutes to get her to nurse. She had NO interest. He wanted to, he would latch on, but she would immediately kick and butt him away, even getting violent with me. At this point I knew they needed colostrum so I said screw it, and milked out as much as I could into a bottle.
As I'm finishing up I hear this faint "baaaa". I think its the wind or the baby boy, so I ignore it. Again, now in a chorus "BAAAAAAAA!!!!"
You've gotta be kidding me.
Calamity dropped twins as well, and didn't even clean them. At this point, my calm facade dropped, I said Many bad words, snatched up the older boy, the twins (who were even smaller!), shoved them into my jacket, snatched clamity and threw her into the birthing pen with Etta, and ran into the house. It was now freezing rain at this point.
I got on the phone with my dad, who had run to walmart to buy dog sweaters. I told him to get two more, and to hurry home!
I then called Joshua, who didn't answer, and said "So, yeah, everything just went to hell. Two more rejected babies, Calamity hasn't dropped her udder at all, Etta, just almost killed me and the baby, I need you to come home now. PLEASE!!!"
So imagine this, folks. Here I am, no transportation, frozen pipes, four screaming cold goat kids, two mothers with little to now interest in cleaning or feeding them, and I've never babysat much less bottle fed anything before.
I took what little colostrum I got out of etta, mixed it with the replacer and some butter milk, and the babies chugged down like there was no tomorrow. Dad got home sooner, his job was to hold the babies while I set them up a dog kennel in the house with the heating pad and heaters (I dont have central HVAC). Joshua gets home and immediately tries to go milk the moms. He grew up on a goat farm, I figured he would have more luck than me. Nope, there was nothing in Calamity, and next to nothing in Etta.
So between the hours of 5:30 and noon, I had four babies born and no mommas to feed them. by 1:00, everything was under control.
We kept trying every day for the next week to get the mommas to feed, but to no avail. After talking to my friend Allison the goat breeder and reading about survival methods of mammals from Grad School, I think it was just too damn cold. They didn't want to give up the calories, they knew the babies probably wouldn't make it anyway, so its better to let them die than risk themselves dieing.
They are now getting bottle fed twice a day, are happy, healthy babies. We are getting 3-4 cups per milking, so 6-8 cups a day, which we supplement with SavAKid. I've had no scours or problems except I've got three pocket bucks and a bossy nanny in training.
So there ya go. And
here are videos for your viewing pleasure. These are from their first week of growth. The sweater video is the first day it was warm enough for them to be outside, and they've been ouside for the last two weeks without any problems. The moms still dont like them, the males are actually very sweet and protective. My farm is soooo backwards.
Oh, and their names are
Zeus
Poseidon
Ares
And Athena
All those pics are from that first day after we got them fed, clean and warm.
