Pixie starting to reject her kids....

[SDBoerGoats]

Pixie, our Kiko/Boer cross, kidded Monday. Twins, one girl and a boy. She took right to them, and nursed them. Although she did a really poor job of cleaning the doeling, I had to wash her down myself. She cleaned the boy OK, but I've seen lots better jobs.

Today I noticed that she was acting kind of bitchy towards the babies when they went up to nurse. They have been eating just fine and doing well, but she would turn around real quick and glare at them when they tried. I got my radar up, because last year she totally refused to feed her doeling. She had twins last year, her first time. The little girl had one back leg that kind of popped backwards at the hock. I gave her a selenium shot and the next morning she was fine. But she kind of crawled to her mom the first night to nurse and Pixie rejected her. We held the baby up to nurse and Pixie pitched a fit. We did this for several days but it got to be such a pain and she would kick her so bad I started bottle feeding her as I had others anyway. But the baby wanted to be with her mom and kept screaming so I left her with her mother, and took the bottle to the fence line, she would come running and eat, then head back to mom.
Pixie never accepted her, ever. She loved the boy to death, guarded him fiercely. But the girl was a reject.

now it appears she is trying to get rid of both of them this year. And they are 3 days old. We held her and forced her to let the kids eat. They were hungry. Will go back out and do that again before I go to bed. Have to do baby checks anyway.
Anyone else ever have a doe to do this? Try to reject her kids after she has already had them for three days and been nursing them?

 

[20kidsonhill]

goat burgers sound yummy, I will bring the buns.

 

[ksj0225]

Have you checked her udder for heat, lumps, cuts, rawness, etc???? After all that... Can she be milked?

After that if you have to pull them will she protect them from the herd?


Then... goat burgers... Too many good mothers out there to mess with a bad one. IMHO...

 

[Shelly May]

After checking her teats for abnormalties, if all is good, Don't give up on her yet, Keep forcing her to feed them,
just a few more days. Then watch to see if she is a better momma, its is important that they get her milk not a
bottle, as she knows them by the smell of her milk in their poop. After that if she Don't do her job Goat burger
sounds good to me.

 

[Tmaxson]

I second checking the teats. I had one stop letting her twins nurse on or around day three. She was very full and her teats were dry so I milked her out a bit and put some bag balm on her teats and she went right back to nursing them just fine. Hopefully that's the problem because it's a very simple fix. Good luck.

 

[SDBoerGoats]

I've checked her bag, milked her to make sure she had milk. She doesn't have a huge bag, but then she didn't have last year either. Her bag is more flat across her tummy than pendulous. We massaged her bag last night, it felt firm but no lumps or heat. We held her to let the little ones eat, and they both did. Did the same this morning. I saw the boy go up and grab a little drink and she walked off, so we held her again. She does protect them from others, and kisses and loves on them, she just doesn't want them to nurse. She let the boy nurse last year and loved him to death.

I agree with many, if she doesn't start kicking in and feeding her kids, she can go down the road.

 

[SDBoerGoats]

Have you checked her udder for heat, lumps, cuts, rawness, etc???? After all that... Can she be milked?

After that if you have to pull them will she protect them from the herd?


Then... goat burgers... Too many good mothers out there to mess with a bad one. IMHO...

last year when we had to bottle feed the doeling, the baby wanted to stay with the herd and be with her mama, so we let her stay, she came to the fence for her bottles. But Pixie didn't really care what happened to her. The baby was a survivor, she slept with mom and brother whether her mom loved her or not. None of the other does bothered her though, so it was easy to just feed her with the herd. She never tried to nurse off the others, I was there with a bottle 3 times a day, and she did start early on hay. I also noticed today that the two newest twins were already standing up to get hay from the manger!

 

[Shelly May]

Keep your chin up and be persistant, make her feed them as long as possible, they are getting all that colostreum
from mamma, and that so important first milk.

 

[20kidsonhill]

I have the opposite opinion as Shelly May, I would at least get them on a couple bottles a day, because if she wont take them, you are going to need to bottle feed them, and the older they get the harder it is going to convince them that the rubber nipple is tastey.

Have you considered giving her Banamine for pain? If you have some it is worth a try.

Maybe she isn't producing quite enough milk, so they started trying too nurse too often, and that freaked her out. I have seem this in some of my younger does. They will start laying down to cover their udders, because they are tired of the kids bothering them. I will give the kids no more than two bottles a day. and with in 2 or 3 days everything will be back to normal. Normally I see this about the 2nd to 3rd day after the kids are born, it is like the mom had that initail milk supply, but the kids used it all up and then she doesn't catch up, so they keep bugging her. She will eventually adjust and catch up and they would be fine on their own, except she then gets freaked out from them constantly trying to nurse, then she wont let them nurse. So by giving them a big bottle at bed time, it gives her some rest and some relief from them bothering her. I have never had a doe reject the kid, because they have had a couple bottles of milk replacer or whole cows milk. When she starts producing enough milk, things seem to calm down. Maybe giving her a break will help.

 

[Pearce Pastures]

I have the opposite opinion as Shelly May, I would at least get them on a couple bottles a day, because if she wont take them, you are going to need to bottle feed them, and the older they get the harder it is going to convince them that the rubber nipple is tastey.

Have you considered giving her Banamine for pain? If you have some it is worth a try.

Maybe she isn't producing quite enough milk, so they started trying too nurse too often, and that freaked her out. I have seem this in some of my younger does. They will start laying down to cover their udders, because they are tired of the kids bothering them. I will give the kids no more than two bottles a day. and with in 2 or 3 days everything will be back to normal. Normally I see this about the 2nd to 3rd day after the kids are born, it is like the mom had that initail milk supply, but the kids used it all up and then she doesn't catch up, so they keep bugging her. She will eventually adjust and catch up and they would be fine on their own, except she then gets freaked out from them constantly trying to nurse, then she wont let them nurse. So by giving them a big bottle at bed time, it gives her some rest and some relief from them bothering her. I have never had a doe reject the kid, because they have had a couple bottles of milk replacer or whole cows milk. When she starts producing enough milk, things seem to calm down. Maybe giving her a break will help.

x2