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Most people who breed goats know that at some point in their life a mom in labor will need help.
When your doe goes into labor, it should go quick and not require any assistance from you. This has always been the case with all of our does until last Sunday.
About Lilly
Lilly is a pretty small pygmy goat. She was very large in this pregnancy and I was worried she would be delivering quite a few (3 or more) babies. She was also a day overdue.
When Lilly started her labor at 6 pm all was well for the first hour. When the next hour came she started to push. Completely normal. Typically the kids come within a 1/2 hour or so once the pushing starts. Not his poor little girl. At 11:00 pm we still had no babies and she was still pushing off and on. Not once did she ever complain or seem stressed. Now I was starting to get nervous.
I took a break to go get a drink. When I came back a 1/2 later we had a head showing. Yay! Now we are finally moving. As I entered the stall, I knew we had issues. Lilly’s baby was all head and no hooves. For the next 1/2 hour this poor little girl continued to push and got no where.
I had never pulled a kid before so now my anxiety was in full swing. I called the vet to walk through what I needed to do. The vet said, “Dead or alive that baby has to come out now! We need to get the other delivering.” Talk about pressure!
Time to Pull Those Kids
I walked back into the barn and explained to my husband what the vet had said. As his face got whiter, my anxiety was in full swing. I looked at poor Lilly and knew one way or another this was going to happen.
After taking a deep breath, I began working on getting that baby out. My husband had asked if the baby was still alive. I was not sure because it was not really moving. After about 10 minutes of working on the baby, it finally was free and came right out. My husband and I looked at each other wondering if the kid was ok. Honestly, I was pretty sure I had killed it. Within seconds this little one started shaking its head. We jumped in and started cleaning the baby’s face, placing her near Lilly to clean off.
Lilly at this point was starting to deliver the next kid. I immediately noticed we had another problem again. This time we had a head and one hoof. The other leg was all the way back against the body. Are you kidding me? This kid however was much easier to pull. After cleaning off the face this little one was also given to Lilly to finish cleaning.
Happy Ending
Within an hour of these two kids being born, they were full of life. I fed Lilly to give her some energy as she was so tired. Lilly ended up with two little girls. Of all the babies we have had born, these two are definitely the smallest.
We are not too sure if we will breed Lilly again as this is the second difficult delivery she has had. She also only received her milk in one udder again. The kids are doing well taking turns nursing and she has plenty of milk. Luckily no issues here.
At least now my husband and I understand what it takes to pull a baby. Hopefully it will be a few more years (again) before we have to pull another.
