2004-02-08 - 10:40 a.m.
One of the goats ran into a birthing problem the other day. I was just about to go in for lunch when Sue walked over to me and said,"Come on, we've got a goat in trouble." She had been feeding them in the pasture and saw a baby's head coming out of one of the nannies but no legs. To those of you not around farm animals this is a recipe for trouble. On livestock the front legs should come out with the head and the first thing you see at a birthing are the front hooves. If the head comes out with no legs it means the legs are folded down and stuck in the mother. When this happens they usually need help or both will die.
Goats are only worth about $40 each so we never call a Vet out. His charge would be more than the cost of the goat so we have learned to be shade tree Vets. First we had to catch the mama goat. She had beeen laying down exhausted but when we started to get close she found new energy and ran off. That has to be one of the most aggravating things, you're there to help but they don't know it and they won't even let you get close. We tried for about 30 min to catch the goat but we finally had to bring the whole group across the creek to a catch pen area. We could tell the baby goat hanging out was dead but it has to come out or the mama will die.
When I finally caught her the real fun began. My job at birthings gone wrong is to hold the animal for Sue. Her hands are smaller and it's easier for her to do what has to be done. I have to hold the animal up lots of times because they often want to lie down. Sue puts on rubber gloves and lubricates up her hands then puts the baby's head back in and fishes around to find the legs. This may sound easy but the whole time the mother is trying to push it back out so it can be a real struggle.
When Sue finally got the head back in she felt a second baby right behind the first. She kept probing till she got the front legs and pulled out a baby. We both thought it was the dead one so Sue put it aside on the grass. When she did it started to breath and thats when we knew she had just pulled out the second baby. Sue cleaned it up quickly and went back in to get the other one. She found the front legs and this one came out dead like we expected.
The live baby was not in good shape. It's head was swollen from the ordeal and the mama didn't seem interested in it. We put them both in a stall and I gave the mama a shot of antibiotic. We didn't give the baby much hope but Sue went down later and milked out the mama into a bottle and gave it to the baby to make sure it was getting some milk.
The next day I was suprised to hear the baby was still alive. The mama had taken to it and it was nursing well. The swelling had gone away and today(3 days later) it is looking great and so does the mama goat. I told Sue to name that goat "Tuffy" cause I didn't give it half a chance.
