Bottle fed baby goat

[Julianna123]

hi I recently bought a month old nigerian doeling. I have been bottle feeding her when I got her she had been eating from her mom. I'm now feeding her whole milk. ( I'm going to start feeding her whole milk mixed with evaporated goat milk) so I have a tendency to worry when nothing's actually wrong, but she's been making like popping noises when she breathes and after that she'll start chewing or something. Her stomach is round and firm (it made some noises earlier) and I'm not sure if she's been digesting properly. She seems healthy herself ( the usual jumping and begging for food) am I worrying for nothing?

 

[chooks4life]

hi I recently bought a month old nigerian doeling. I have been bottle feeding her when I got her she had been eating from her mom. I'm now feeding her whole milk. ( I'm going to start feeding her whole milk mixed with evaporated goat milk) so I have a tendency to worry when nothing's actually wrong, but she's been making like popping noises when she breathes and after that she'll start chewing or something.

My pet sheep sounds like a drain emptying when she regurgitates to chew the cud, it's quite noisy!

Her stomach is round and firm (it made some noises earlier) and I'm not sure if she's been digesting properly.

If it looks like she swallowed a football, that's not ideal. The flanks should be a bit rounded with a full tummy, or level with her ribs, but not bulge out like there's a soccerball inside her. If they're bulging and hard, she may be overfed or bloated, both of which are potentially lethal. Overfeeding can help trigger enterotoxaemia (pulpy kidney) and dietary changes among a host of other things can trigger bloating.

If you suspect pulpy kidney, repeated high dose of vitamin C can help (has saved my animals many times, including my last bottle bub lamb with pulpy kidney); it's usually combined with kelp meal and dolomite or lime, but I combined it with raspberry leaf, honey, rosemary and kelp, lacking lime at the time; it's the vitamin C that is most important there.

In the case of bloating, some people use bicarbonate of soda (I'm one of them), some use oils (olive oil (I also use that), castor oil, vegetable oil, etc), some people use epsom salts (tried that, she would not have it)...

Anything that shifts gas, really, including if necessary puncturing the stomach with a knife; that one however is only for the direst emergency and if you get it wrong of course the animal dies. Still, regardless of idealistic preferences, bloating can kill in half an hour or less, and you'd be a rare and lucky person if you know a vet that can and will reliably get out to your place in less than that time frame. Always pays to learn things even if you hope you will never have to use them.

Lack of gut sounds is a very serious sign, generally speaking, many people will consider it a serious warning sign if there are no gut sounds for a whole minute or two, but the pet ewe I mentioned before never had any for most of her adolescence due to how sick her gut was, yet she survived. But it was hit and miss for her entire adolescence, it's nothing short of a whole series of miracles that she's still alive. She's a rare and extreme example and I wouldn't use her as a reason to not worry about lack of gut sounds.

Are you offering her free choice fresh clean water? (Tap water made my lamb sick so often that I kept her on filtered water only, and goats are notoriously fussier about the state of water on average).

If in doubt, wait till her gut stops being so tight/firm before feeding her again. It's always good to keep a regular eye on their peeing and pooping, it will tell you a lot about their internal health.

A goatling her age should have dry fodder on hand too, free choice, or pasture, not just milk. Since she's chewing the cud she's obviously eating something, hopefully only safe things. It's a very good idea to get vit C and activated carbon/charcoal on hand just in case, before you have any problems; both can save animals that have eaten a whole range of seriously toxic plants, and the vitamin C can also deal with many other issues from snakebite to infection. Intravenous vitamin C is better for that but generally only experienced goat/animal keepers inject.
Best wishes.

 

[Julianna123]

Thanks so much for everything!!!!! I really appreciate it now that I think of it, she is digesting just fine what I'm mainly worried about is that she's breathing kind of fast (when she's asleep) and her breath smells a bit bad:/ she's acting normal otherwise...

 

[chooks4life]

You're welcome.

The breath should not smell bad though, that can indicate a variety of problems. If you can get hold of raspberry leaf, either green and raw or dried from a health food shop for example, this is great at disinfecting their guts; you can feed it straight or make it into a tea and let them drink that, or nibble the drained leaves the tea was made from.

My last bottle fed baby had a horribly infected gut from contamination by the time I got her, and had horrible breath because of it, and a heck of a lot of health problems too; luckily I had access to both raw and dried raspberry leaf which cleaned her up really well. It's also used to prevent septic issues in females with reproductive tract issues, there's been scientific studies done on it too, it's shifted beyond 'just another old wives tale'. (These 'old wives' were right about a surprising amount of things lol).

Best wishes.