{"id":2622,"date":"2011-07-27T07:35:48","date_gmt":"2011-07-27T14:35:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=2622"},"modified":"2011-10-15T12:16:42","modified_gmt":"2011-10-15T19:16:42","slug":"how-not-to-deliver-a-baby-goat-properly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=2622","title":{"rendered":"How (Not) to Deliver a Baby Goat Properly."},"content":{"rendered":"

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1.\u00a0 Disregard your training.\u00a0 Just because every goat owner you know will assist a birth if the doe doesn’t deliver within an hour of serious labor, doesn’t mean that you should.\u00a0 Wait.\u00a0 Wait some more.\u00a0 Feel free to sit with your goat when she starts pushing at 8pm, let her push until 11pm, fall asleep in the barn, and wake up at 4 am to find her still pushing with only an\u00a0intact amniotic sac partially delivered.\u00a0 After all, if you ignore a bad situation long enough, sometimes it will resolve itself for the better.\u00a0 If it doesn’t, just squeeze your eyes closed really tight and go to your happy place.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Forget your goat anatomy.\u00a0 If you are forced to break the amniotic sac and assist the doe with the delivery by reaching inside her (I know, I know, eeeeeeeeeewwwwwwww!) to reposition a baby, be sure that you have no idea what you are feeling.\u00a0 Is that a hoof?\u00a0 A nose? \u00a0It’s OK to think you have the baby turned right because you\u00a0can feel his\u00a0jawbone only to find out that was his pelvis and you are delivering him breech.\u00a0 By the time you can see his buttocks and realize your mistake,\u00a0he’s already halfway out anyway.\u00a0 So just go with it.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Never be prepared.\u00a0 Yes, you have a birthing kit.\u00a0 Yes, it’s missing the nasal aspirator.\u00a0 Yes, you remember the kids borrowed it for a bath tub toy, never returned it, and now you have no idea where it is.\u00a0 \u00a0Since you’ve never needed the aspirator in a birth before, you certainly won’t need it this time either.\u00a0 And if you do\u00a0finally manage to deliver\u00a0a breech baby goat a full 5 minutes after rupturing his amniotic sac and he is delivered with no signs of life except audible gurgles, it’s fine.\u00a0 Just fine.\u00a0 Clear as much goo from his face as you can while holding him upside down and rubbing him vigorously, hoping to stimulate him to clear his airways.\u00a0 That or be sure to have your 9 year old livestock manager with you to say, “Hey, what if we used an empty syringe from the vaccination box to suck out all that mucus?”\u00a0 Oh yeah.\u00a0 I was just about to think of that.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Only have 4 clean birthing towels in the barn (this is a supplement to Step #3).\u00a0 No, you can’t possibly clean up a messy birth with only 4 towels.\u00a0 But you can dash out of the kidding barn at 50 MPH, increase your speed to 60MPH when the aforementioned livestock manager starts yelling, “Here comes the next one, here comes the next one!”, slide into the mudroom for more clean towels, and race back to the kidding barn at 40 MPH (I’m more of an emergency sprinter than an endurance runner), dropping half of them on the way so that they are no longer clean.\u00a0 Think of it as an opportunity to build cardio strength.\u00a0 We can all use a little more cardio, right?<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Check the gender of the baby goats as soon as possible.\u00a0 Don’t forget to check the gender before you start ooohing and awwwing over the incredible coat colors—the most pretty coat colors that have been born here!\u00a0 That way when you discover all the stress and hard work was for 3 FREAKING BUCKLINGS, you can get all the disappointment out of the way quickly (Note to nongoat owners:\u00a0 When raising dairy goats, females are much more valuable than males.\u00a0 As only the females actually produce dairy.\u00a0 Males just run around peeing on themselves.\u00a0 Which is why God made it that an entire large dairy herd is able to function with only 1 or 2 males.\u00a0 Oh, His infinite wisdom<\/em>).\u00a0 Breathe deep, smile through gritted teeth and murmur to the new momma, “Good work, Carmen, you just delivered 3 almost worthless, whoops, I mean, perfect babies.\u00a0 Nice work, sweetie!”\u00a0 Ugh.<\/p>\n

Remember to check this blog site frequently, fellow farm enthusiasts.\u00a0 Everything you need to know about how (not) to farm, is right here for your reading pleasure.\u00a0 Come back soon for the exciting sequel, “How (Not) To Disbud Baby Goats.”\u00a0 I can hardly wait myself.<\/p>\n

And just in case you’re wondering, here are the new MALE (sigh) additions to the herd:<\/p>\n

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RoadBlock: the guy who was holding up the birthing show.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Chad: the second one born and only the second black and white kid born here.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Chip: the last one out of the mother ship.<\/p><\/div>\n

P.S.\u00a0 If you are curious about why we are even having baby goats born at the end of JULY (!!!!!!), please review my earlier posting on “How (Not) to Breed Your Goats Properly” (Another note to nongoat owners:\u00a0 Baby goats are usually born in early spring—from February to April.\u00a0 I don’t really know why.\u00a0 If I knew why, or how, it happens that way I guess I’d do it then, too.\u00a0 Or I’d try.\u00a0 Which means it would probably happen in July anyway.<\/em>).\u00a0 I’m telling you this site is an endless wealth of (dis)information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1.\u00a0 Disregard your training.\u00a0 Just because every goat owner you know will assist a birth if the doe doesn’t deliver within an hour of serious labor, doesn’t mean that you should.\u00a0 Wait.\u00a0 Wait some more.\u00a0 Feel free to sit with your goat when she starts pushing at 8pm, let her push until 11pm, fall asleep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[102,116],"class_list":["post-2622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-goat","tag-kidding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2622"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3021,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions\/3021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}