In the midst of kidding and disbudding we ended up on a little side road through some tough situations. But first, here is a picture of disbudding. I hate disbudding. The wee kid is screaming and there is smoke (burning hair). But I will say that within seconds they are off and running around like nothing happened at all! I think they don't like being confined, it's not necessarily just the disbudding process. We use the Rhineheart 30X. Disbudding is a management issue and good goat owners disagree on whether to do it or not. We disbud. And I'm glad my guys consider it a "man's job". My job is to give them some tincture I made ahead of time for pain relief, but honestly I'm not sure they really need that. But it sure makes me feel better!
Having eight kids was a challenge; last year we only had one doe kid. But thankfully all of the mamas birthed their kids easily and during the DAY. Score!
Starry Night was a surprise. Here she is with her brother and sister. As you can see, she is easily a third the size. She weighed 1 pound (yes...ONE) 12 ounces at birth. We were waiting for her mama to pass the placenta and suddenly she began pushing again. And out this little wee black doeling came! I (and her mama) immediately gave her up for dead; my friend and daughter however displayed courage and heroics and revived her. Lesson learned for me! Every life is precious!
Starry Night spent every moment she wasn't being handled under a heat lamp. We decided to keep her in the barn as the temperature was moderate and she could hear all of the goats around her. She had a sweet little nest box that my 12 year old son built.
My 14 year old daughter took charge of the little darling. She learned to tube feed and for the first 4 or 5 days tubed Starry Night around the clock. I remember waking to feed my own newborn baby (born during the same month!) and seeing my daughter and husband making their way quietly to the barn in the dark. We made sure Starry NIght got some colostrum and a little bit of Fastrack. But three days after her birth her breathing became labored.
As it turns out, we were encouraging her to try a bottle at that point and I think she probably got some dribbles of milk into her lungs. I think she developed drenching pneumonia. We treated her initially with penicillin (with advice of another goat owner, who apparently got the same advice from her vet), but learned that what she really needed was a sulfa drug to dry up her lungs. We gave her five days (full dose) of Di-Methox, and true enough, it calmed down her breathing and we were over the hump. So we thought.
One morning her head got floppy and her eyes clouded up. We immediately pulled her off of milk and used just plain water with baking soda. We added B complex because of her eyes clouding up, and two days later she, again, looked like she was doing well, even getting up and wagging her little tail.
So we decided to try her on some milk again, just a wee bit (like 2cc) in water. We left her in good, capable hands for a much needed break and road trip, but hours later she just shut down and stopped breathing, and died.
There were a lot of tears, for sure.
We learned a lot during this time. If you are not part of a yahoo or other goat group, I would highly recommend you find one you fit with. The people in our group were a tremendous support and I am so thankful of all of their help and loving encouragement.
We gave Starry Night a burial place of honor next to the other animals that we have loved and lost. Such is part of keeping animals, but we trust God in all things regarding them and are thankful for His comfort.
