Ok, I read about sugar...I’ll do the milk first and see how that goes. Easier to catch than urine. This morning was not as hard as yesterday...so, I think she’s letting them nurse a bit. Their pots were not quite as empty when we picked them up, and her udder was not near as tight. She is still not as friendly about the whole process and I’m just shocked...she is just such a sweet girl. I guess she got engorged from them nursing on Stormy, and now it’s just a vicious cycle until we get her caught up. We’ll get there. Thanks everyone!
They were disbudded on Friday. They look like they try to go to her when she’s not in the stand but she pushes them away. Yesterday they seemed afraid of her, and that just broke my heart. Ok...so milk on heads and bums...we smell like milk, the barn smells like milk....I can’t believe they don’t smell enough to her? Sometimes we have to squirt the little guy’s face soooo much because he’s not great at taking to it. He’s the small one and I have to cradle him. He likes to lay down...cute.
You're a great goat mom!
Yeah, I know I can do that...but, as you said...kind of a pain. Thanks for the compliment...I don’t know how to be anything else with these buggers....they are sooo cute...even with the bad haircuts.Hopefully in a few more days they'll all love each other again. If not, you could milk her and bottle feed the milk to the babes... Kind of a pain - but makes really sweet kids.
Oh...we’ll definitely do that next year. The vet didn’t do anything. I asked and she said we could leave them alone since it was winter and there shouldn’t be a problem with flies, etc. I never thought of an issue with the mom. Asforthepain, I had read that the kids would be fine shortly after. Next year I’ll use bluekote. But there was a big change today. Busty is nursing!! I felt tummies and they felt good and her udder felt ok, but then I saw her nurse two at a time. I was sooo happy. I’m still keeping them in the kidding pen for a looong time so there’s not another issue. But I let them all out to play while I’m out there. I just came back in again. They are very spunky. And Busty is back to being very protective of them. Stormy crawled into Busty’s kid’s box with Stormy’s kids. Busty wanted them all out!! Before, when I saw that people had various kidding dates, I wondered why not do it all at once? Now I totally get it!!Just thought of another thing...did the vet put anything on them after disbudding? We always use BluKote. Works great with taking the pain away somewhat. We normally bottle raise, but last year one doe had a single premie so we let her have the kid. After she was disbudded, the doe licked her head and that was it. She was perfectly fine with it. I think it takes the burn smell away. But we normally don't dam raise so don't have much experience with that. Just a thought that crossed my mind.
Oh and how we know it takes the pain away is because we use it on ourselves when when we accidentally burn ourselves.
Ohhh! I remember the Rodeos!You need to have her and her kids in a separate stall and you need a stanchion for holding her for the kids to nurse so you won't wear yourself out. Very easy to make a hobble with a simple length of serpentine rope. Stanchion and hobble, monitor the feedings and assist with latching.
You must really love drama, girl.
