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Nutmeg’s littlest baby girl, the black one, did not make it today. I’ve never had triplets before and they were tinier than the other babies at birth. This one was nursing at first, but this morning she was weak and having trouble getting up to Nutmeg. I took her inside and started bottle feeding her, but over the course of the day, she just got weaker and weaker until she wouldn’t eat any more and then that was it…… Sigh! That is the only time I have ever lost a goat baby in quite that way. Goat babies are usually pretty strong, but this one was just too tiny….. So make that three girls and a goat burger. The rest are doing fine!
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But I have a question…and I really hope it doesn’t come across as insensitive, but I don’t know the answer to it.
When you have a death of livestock like this, what do you do?
Do you bury the animal on your property? Is that legal? I know in some cases you would take the animal to the vet for an autopsy, but if they pass at home….???
I’m hoping to one day have a few animals in my care, and would like to know to be prepared.
Thank you.
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A sad turn of events for sure. She was a cutie.
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justdeborah2002 MY experience of ‘what happens’ may or may not be what happens with Suzanne’s losses. Small animals such as this are taken (preferably NOT farmland) and is left for the scavengers of the food chain, giving them protein and calcium. Doesn’t sound nice, and it’s not. It is reality.
Pam
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I am so sorry for your loss.
We have had Nubian and Nubian-Alpine cross goats for several years, and when we have one go weak on us, we use a solution of coffee, warm water and corn syrup to try to boost them up, as well as they regularly get a shot of BoSe shortly after birth.
We have also lost our share of little ones, and it hurts every time.
Steve @ Stone Silo Farms
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For the folks considering (or who have) goats, I have two thoughts that I feel could have happened here.
The first being (and I don’t know if you vaccinate your mama goats so can’t be sure) pneumonia. Baby goats can and will get pneumonia and be dead within 12-24 hours (often times without obvious symptoms). I vaccinate all my mamas at a year old, and do their annual boosters when I breed in the fall, to ensure they pass on immunity when the babies are born in the spring. If this was the case, there’s not much you could have done unless you caught it right at the outset and flooded her with antibiotics.
The other being that she wasn’t getting enough milk from Nutmeg because she was the smallest, and the others weren’t letting her. I had a very good mother birth triplets last year. The little doeling was bullied by her two brothers and didn’t get enough to eat. By the time I pulled her and started bottle-feeding, she ate way too much on the first feeding (which I didn’t know because I wasn’t sure how much she had been getting from mom) and got what ‘goat people’ call “floppy kid syndrome”, meaning when she over-ate, her body reacted as if it was poison, and her whole system went septic. My future strategy is to pull one kid if any of my mothers birth trips again, and start bottle feeding immediately after they have the opportunity to get some colostrum from mom (even milking her and giving it to the baby if necessary).
Not everyone manages their animals this way, but I just wanted to put it out there, in case it helps someone. Again, so sorry for your loss Suzanne! I am starting my kidding in about a month, so I’m sure I will have many a late night, and will pray I don’t lose any this year.