New Baby - Herd member being mean to it.

[Squirrelgirl88]

We have two Nigerian Dwarf goats - sisters. They are 19 months old. Lucy just had a single doeling on Friday Night. Lily is pregnant and due in December.

Problem - Lily is being very mean to the baby. She is not very happy about being seperated from her sister - Lucy and the baby are in the kidding stall. When I try and let them out for some exercise, Lily rams the baby and hits her with her horns. Lucy then starts after Lily. Both adult goats have horns intact. This has never caused us any trouble, but I worry about the safety of the baby.

I hate keeping Lucy and the baby locked in the kidding stall, but I can't leave them out with Lily. I know it's only been a few days, but they can't stay in there forever.

Of course this has been compounded by the fact that with the wind and rain, no one has left the barn in three days. Tensions are running a little high from the "cabin fever". I'm hoping that the rain will let up in a couple of days and maybe Lily can burn off some energy outside.

Once she has her own baby(s) I'm hoping she'll be too busy to care about the other baby. But in the mean time I have to figure something out.

Any suggestions on how to make her less aggressive with the baby? It's not like I can explain it to her. (I already tried that) :/

 

[promiseacres]

can you swap them so the mama and baby can have somet time outside with the other goat inside the pen? maybe give her a treat of hay or something while she's in there. Plus she'll get used to being in there for when her time comes.

I don't have goats, so this is just a thought

 

[Queen Mum]

Promiseacres makes a good suggestion. She may not know what to do with it. It is new to the herd and each new herd member is in a pecking order so the other goats try to establish the pecking order by pushing the junior member around. New mom's usually will establish that the baby is part of her pecking order, but some new mom's don't do that very well.

Also, keep in mind that herd pecking order somewhat depends on birthing order of kids.

Queen's will establish that their babies are queen babies and not to be messed with and so on down the line. The lowest babies on the totem pole usually get the most abuse, but sometimes the lowest mom's of the lowest babies can be quite fiercely protective which ups their ranking a bit. It can throw a small herd into a tizzy. And the does that are PG will often times get a little testy trying to keep the herd order straight so they don't lose their status.

 

[lilhill]

I agree with Queen Mum, and add that some does just do not like other doe 's kids. The little one will learn quickly who to stay away from.

 

[Tmaxson]

We had the same issue although the two does were not sisters. The "baby" is now 8 months old and the queen still hates her but she just tries to stay away from the queen as much as possible. The queen had twin boys and the mom of the first baby now pushes the twin boys around. Occasionally the moms will let the kids play together, but then after some time they will break it up. It's like they have cliques. It's very frustrating to watch but they usually work it out. All my goats have horns but thankfully we haven't had any injuries. I also think I am going to have to start hooking them up to feed them because the queen wants to eat out of every bowl and pushes everyone around including her boys when it comes to food. She can be a real "B".

See the picture below, the white/grey one is the queen. The light brown one is the mom to the dark brown doe. This was the doelings first day out of the kidding stall and the queen is all worked up with her hair standing up on her back looking at the sweet little doeling.

 

[Squirrelgirl88]

I've always thought of Lucy as the Queen. She's more bossy and in charge, and she's the one that has the new baby.

I know poor Lily is upset. She is clearly pouting. I feel bad for her, but I can't let her hurt the baby.

I did seperate them this morning for awhile. I let Lily out into the rest of the barn while Mom and Baby were loose in the stall area. The Baby ran, twisted and jumped all around while Mom just stood there watching. Lily stood on the other side of the door and gave me dirty looks.

This darn weather is the biggest problem. With the rain no one will go outside. I have a way to put them in seperate pastures outside. And that way they can see each other through the fence to get to know each other safely.

Rain, rain go away.....

 

[Queen Mum]

We see the doeling as sweet. That is anthropomorphism. Applying human values to animals doesn't work well when trying to figure out how to solve animal behavior, though.

That lovely doe can't rationalize like we do. She isn't mean, she is just surviving. Even though she has plenty of food, and you always make sure of that, she will never know and understand that. That is because she has a queen temperament.

She sees the doeling as competition for her herd position and as competition for food for her kids. In nature there is only so much food. The queen has to assure the survival of her young. She has to make sure they are strong and healthy. And she has to make sure they breed. The queen gets the most food, the best food because she has to make milk for her young. So she takes it. That assures that her kids are the healthiest.

Some queens are more agressive than others. Some of them settle down a bit with age and learn to take the queen behavior only so far. Mine does that. She doesn't chase the other kids away agressively. She is pretty easy on them. But she does butt them away. She never hurts the newborns and respects the newborn/mama bonds. However, she is pretty aggressive when it comes to her own kids. She protects them fiercely.

Conversely, she also fiercely protects any kid in the herd from intruders. And she adopts babies from bad mamas. And she disciplines bad mamas.

She also takes all the best food. Runs all the other does off from the best food and is pretty aggressive about it. BUT she never hurts them. That is one example of a good queen. I lucked out with her.