My goat just had her baby.....Now what

[aaronzclark]

So my pygmy had her baby at 8:30 yesterday morning i put um in a kidding pen with food and water but i have never done anything like this before so like what do i do now? like when does the baby get her first shots? when do i let them out of the kidding pen to the field? also how old are they before they wean and how do you go about it? haha i need help please give me info

 

[Countrywife]

Make sure momma has hay and water, and grain, if you use it. The baby will nurse and momma will show it to eat when she is ready. Letting them out in the field depends on weather, other goats, mom in the pecking order. If the weather is good and mom is high up in bossiness order, sometimes I don't even take them in the barn. New mommas, low girl on the totem pole, bad weather, I keep them in the barn until the baby is up and running good. Shots should be about 3 weeks. You could feed them medicated feed, but do your research first and make an intelligent decision. I don't, and have never had trouble, others always do. You need to be concerened with coccidiosis (sp?). I don't wean, I let mom do it.

Just enjoy, handle the baby a lot, and keep an eye that momma is nursing- if the baby is jumping around by now it is probably eating fine.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Here's a site that can answer all your questions:

http://fiascofarm.com/goats/index.htm

 

[Laney]

Ok... well you need to watch baby and Mama regularly to make sure that the baby is nursing properly and gaining weight. If at any point the baby gets scours (diarrhea) that is an emergency that needs to be taken care of. If your new to goats you need to take the baby to your vet. In the first two days it is most likely E-coli.

First worming needs to take place as soon as the Kid starts to nibble on roughage. Around 10 days. That is if your in the worm on a regular schedule crowd.

Weaning depends on your intent with the baby. There are the wean after the first few days crowd. They wean to a bottle and bottle raise the baby. These babies are much more friendly as adults and easier to control. There are the Naturalists who let the mother wean the baby. This works most of the time. (however, sometimes you end up with a year old who hasn't weaned). Then there is the happy medium crowd who weans between 4 and 5 months. Don't ask me how to wean, I've not done it yet. None of my babies are that old.

Hope this at least helps get you started.

Laney

 

[cmjust0]

Quote:
The very first thing you need to do is dip the umbilical cord in iodine. Iodine will help it dry quickly. We have umbilical clips to snap on them, too, but a piece of floss tied around it won't hurt. The goal here is to prevent bacteria from going up the umbi and causing an infection called "naval ill." You don't want that.

As for shots...mama sorta should have been C/D-T boostered about 3 weeks ago so she could pass the C/D-T antibodies on to the baby through her colostrum. If that didn't happen, you kinda have to walk a fine line between waiting too long and not waiting long enough. They won't develop any antibodies to anything for the first several weeks, so giving a shot now won't do any good. If you wait too long, though, the window of opportunity for infection gets bigger and bigger. If mama wasn't boostered a few weeks ago, I'd give the first shot at 2 weeks and booster at 6 weeks.

Beyond that, just make sure the baby is nursing and is in as draft-free a place as you can. They can tolerate cold well enough, but cold and drafty is another story. The goal -- and this is gonna sound really stupid -- is to put them somewhere that's well ventilated, but not drafty. Basically, somewhere that's not windy but doesn't get 'stale' quickly.

Once the baby is running and kicking up its heels, it can most likely be let out with mama. Your other goats will likely try to chase it down and it can be nerve racking, but I'm of the opinion that's why they're able to run so fast so quickly.

Wean whenever you want, depending on the plan. Or don't wean and let mama do it. We had some that nursed until they were ridiculously big, but mama allowed it....so long as she was OK with it, so were we. They were boerxnubi triplets and would literally lift her off the ground when they nursed, but mama -- an 81% boer -- didn't mind too much. She eventually had enough, ran them off when they came for a swig, and that was that.

BTW...you can't very well post about brand new baby goats and not put a picture up. It's just rude.

Good luck and keep us posted. Visit BYC's sister site www.backyardherds.com too...there are quite a few really good goat folks over there.