Remember the cute pics I posted Sat of the baby goats?
Well, today is my day off and I got a call when the crew got in this morning that the momma goat was down and couldn't get up. I scrounged up some milk replacer and headed over there. Apparently she had a 3rd kid that was very tiny that had died before birth and had been retained. I thought she still looked bloated, but on palpation, I couldn't feel anything that felt like another baby, just mushy, over stretched uterus, and she was up and around, no straining, no fever, the babies were nursing. She seemed fine when I left yesterday afternoon.
She was straining and very weak when I got there. I got the babies started on a bottle and one of the girls was feeding them when I left to go get milk replacer and glucose. Not 5 minutes later, I got the call that Momma had died. She held on just long enough to see that we were feeding her babies.
SO I convinced my boss to let me bring them home with me for a few days, cuz they need to be fed every 4 hours or so the first week. (not easy cuz he has had people take "sick" goats, chickens etc. home and claim they died. Some actually did, and some they just lied about and kept. We have lost quite a few hens and baby chicks that way. The number in the pen will be down by a few and someone will say they were dead when they got there in the morning and they disposed of them. Then a few weeks later you meet them in the feed store buying chicken feed or go by their house and there is a pen of (coincidentally) the same breed that went missing!
But anyhow, I convinced him I would A) take the best care of them and B) bring them back. Heck, I live a mile from the stable, he could always come get them!
SO this is a sad post becasue of Tinkerbell dying, but I now have 2 cute little babies that are going to be spoiled rotten!
Rocky the Cat: "What the HECK has she brought home THIS time!?"
Well, today is my day off and I got a call when the crew got in this morning that the momma goat was down and couldn't get up. I scrounged up some milk replacer and headed over there. Apparently she had a 3rd kid that was very tiny that had died before birth and had been retained. I thought she still looked bloated, but on palpation, I couldn't feel anything that felt like another baby, just mushy, over stretched uterus, and she was up and around, no straining, no fever, the babies were nursing. She seemed fine when I left yesterday afternoon.
She was straining and very weak when I got there. I got the babies started on a bottle and one of the girls was feeding them when I left to go get milk replacer and glucose. Not 5 minutes later, I got the call that Momma had died. She held on just long enough to see that we were feeding her babies.
SO I convinced my boss to let me bring them home with me for a few days, cuz they need to be fed every 4 hours or so the first week. (not easy cuz he has had people take "sick" goats, chickens etc. home and claim they died. Some actually did, and some they just lied about and kept. We have lost quite a few hens and baby chicks that way. The number in the pen will be down by a few and someone will say they were dead when they got there in the morning and they disposed of them. Then a few weeks later you meet them in the feed store buying chicken feed or go by their house and there is a pen of (coincidentally) the same breed that went missing!
But anyhow, I convinced him I would A) take the best care of them and B) bring them back. Heck, I live a mile from the stable, he could always come get them!
SO this is a sad post becasue of Tinkerbell dying, but I now have 2 cute little babies that are going to be spoiled rotten!
Rocky the Cat: "What the HECK has she brought home THIS time!?"
