How many of you don't intervene

Iluvboers · #21 04/05/09, 05:15 PM

I think your guess of about 20% is accurate or a little high. I think we assist about 10%. I have a lot of other things going on and cannot check really often. I only check every few hours.

Qvrfullmidwife · #22 04/05/09, 07:33 PM

I keep reading variations of "I dont intervene unless necessary".

Welll...I doubt that people intervene when it isnt necessary! I suspect that even those who check for position dont go in up to their pits and drag out a baby in perfect position with a mom who is pushing well.

So maybe it is in definition?

What do you mean by "necessary?"

Goat Servant · #23 04/05/09, 08:14 PM

Not every doe that had a problem one year will have it the next. Case in point our Nubian. The first year she was here she did just great. The second yr she had a head only presentation. After pulling his legs around she delivered the others normaly.
The third yr she had them while I was attending another doe. This yr she delivered 3 unassisted breeches but had to pull a 4th normal presented buckling who was dead.
You get to know who is in distress and act accordlingly. In the head only, she was screaming for a few minutes. That was a no brainer. Go in get those legs out.

chamoisee · #24 04/05/09, 09:07 PM

Necessary?

If the doe has CAE and is in labor, I will help out rather than go back into the house if it seems like she's taking a lot longer than I'm willing to wait. I feel guilty admitting that, because it's rotten, but....I didn't want to wait for hours and hours in the cold damp spring while my human kids messed up the house!

With the doe who had been stunted, I checked her as soon as I noticed she was in labor. Her mature size was only 80-90 lbs....she was small, and unlike the yearling milkers, her kids weren't tiny. With her last kidding, I went in, and the kid's muzzle alone filled up the entire available opening- no hooves, no rest of the face, just the nose and no room for anything else, so she had to get a C-section. Behind that big, husky buck kid was a really beautiful and slightly smaller doe, from a special A.I. breeding, so the C-section was worth it to me. After that, I didn't breed her anymore.

My queen had a habir of birthing gigantic 12-14 # kids, so I got in the habit of checking her as soon as she went into labor, too. Then one year she had a dead, rotten kid and ring-womb, and after that nightmare, had cervical scarring, wouldn't dilate at all, so, C sections every time.

Other than that, if the head and feet are presenting or back feet (breech), and the doe seems to be progressing at a normal rate, I'd leave it alone. If she's been in labor for longer than seems usual, I'd check her, and if the presentation was normal, let her try for a little longer before helping to pull. If a foot was back, I'd pull it forward and go ahead and pull, because God only knows how long she's been trying to push it out, and whether the kid(s) behind the first are stressed or not. If the presentation was truly awful, I'd pull every kid in the bunch and focus on getting them out and nursing.

After the birth, I intervened a lot. I gave them warm molasses water with cider vingar, drew a stream of milk from each teat, and made sure that the kids nursed right away at least once, and that the doe was accepting them all. If she showed any hesitation or aggression towards them, I'd tie her up and make her nurse them before leaving.

Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians · #25 04/05/09, 10:01 PM

From what I have read and seen over the years, more people do harm by intervening than good.
..........................

After doing forums since 1998 and doing most mentoring around Houston I can tell you that this statement is not true, and sad that it is coming from a vet student. I have been called on the phone, been to farms and helped on the internet with likely 100's of people who if they would have just checked for presentation, just checked to see if that uterus was really empty, the kids the doe herself would never have died, never would have needed a c section and never needed to have called me or a vet.

Interveening to most newbies is yanking kids out in poor presentation...letting any doe or ewe push for 1 hour, or waiting for problems to happen instead of being proactive. Being afraid to do pelvics because they have this preconceived notion that it is harmful to the doe, or after the delivery of 2 kids, they go in the house and go to bed with her still with a placenta and even another kid inside, because they don't do a pelvic to simply check and see. Only in the tinest of ND, would your hand and arm ever be bigger than the kids you just delivered to think you can't do a simply check.

I do not consider fingers in the vulva to check for nose/teeth and two front feet as interveening, I think of it as smart. My kids are my cash crop, no way am I going to stress out a doe by having her push for any length of time against a kid she can't get out in the position it is in. I want the kids out in a timely manner, safe and cleaned off and with colostrum for their body weight in 12 hours. I want her on the milkstring without the stress of having to have 3 or 4 kids pushed up against her cervic and having to untangle kids, up to my elbow. And my interveening the way I do is the reason with hundreds of kids born a year and now mid 40ish amounts of kids a year, I have never had a C section or had dead kids or mom unless it was uterine vien bleed in one doe, and several kids born dead who simply were never destined to be alive.

Since nearly all problems associated with kidding problems or pregnancy disease is brought on by us, nutrition, minerals, fat does, skinny does, not enough exercise...too all of a sudden during kidding to go ala natural when there is nothing natural about fencing in goats, isn't happening here.

At some point to be profitable you have to learn for yourself, know the anatomy of your livestock, know what a closed cervix feels like, what a dialted one feels like, what correct presentation even is...do you know how to pull a breech kid out and not rip and umbilical cord? Do you know that the uterus in a goat is a heart (OK two cornicopias), with two horns each containing kids and placenta? Hands on is the only way to learn, because in a vets hands most goats never live through their c sections. Vicki

chamoisee · #26 04/05/09, 10:22 PM

Vicki, that's true. They don't typically do that well after a C section. My favorite doe never did well after her last C section and died that summer for no apparent reason. Why is it that they don't recover well? I was right there with all the C-sections.

With the doe that had ringwomb and didn't dilate at all, the *!! tried to tell me she wasn't in labor because she wasn't dilated....

even after I had repeatedly told him she couldn't dilate. And then he left the placenta in there and told me she would pass it (how??!). She got really sick, had to have antibiotics, took most of the summer to recover.

Qvrfullmidwife · #27 04/06/09, 07:59 AM

Define 'intervening?"

So when you slide two fingers in to make sure that the doe is in good position before letting her push without progress for hours is that intervening or good management? To *me*, this is not intervening, it is good stewardship. Sort of like making sure that we are nourishing our animals appropriately rather than later coming in and trying to fix conditions caused by nutritional deficiency.

Is immunization intervening with the natural or good management?

I am sure that there is an incredibly wide range of philosophies on here but maybe some definitions would be good?

What is 'intervening'? What is "necessary"? I do realize that your definitions will change somewhat with the goals that you have for your goats...

QoTL · #28 04/06/09, 08:20 AM

For me, intervening IS checking for presentation, rather than waiting to see what the doe will do.

Unnecessary intervention: checking presentation/helping when the doe has not been in labor for 1/2 hr-1 hr (or does not seem to be in trouble).

Again- not saying it's wrong at all to check prior to this. I just don't see it as necessary.

If a doe has a history of trouble, or some health issue that can obviously cause problems, I see helping as necessary, regardless where she is in labor.

Meghan

ozark_jewels · #29 04/06/09, 11:18 AM

Anyone who has ever tried to untangle a traffic jam of 2-4 kids after the doe has pushed for 1 hour and jammed them all higgledy-piggledy into the birth canal, will wish they had done a finger check to see if that first kid was coming correctly. Its so easy, so simple and does absolutely NO harm. But it WILL save lives. Sometimes a kid, sometimes even a doe. But as with all things, some people will have to experience it to believe in it.

Patt · #30 04/06/09, 12:21 PM

I suppose I am a non-intervener.

I check on my does and if it looked like something wasn't going well I would hang around but for the most part I let them do their thing. I do have a shed full of clean straw that I put them in to birth that way I can check on them and check the babies over and get the cords sprayed and such. I make sure they are nursing too.

So far I have never had to help with birthing or get a doe to let hers nurse. I have found over the years with cows and goats that if the mother is a bit nervous (about nursing) the best thing I can do is go away. I have never lost a calf or kid that way.

I have pulled one calf from a very small Dexter heifer having a very hefty bull calf and that is the sum total of all the interventions in 8 years.

**mygoat** · #31 04/06/09, 01:57 PM

I'm definitely a checker. My friend, however, is not. I helped her doe deliver triplets... after the doe 'broke water', I arrived. She didn't really want me to go in or anything to check, she wanted her to try for a while. She wasn't having seriously hard contractions or anything, and wasn't straining. We waited from 6:00pm till about midnight, with a few strong contractions. She then asked me to poke around inside, as she hadn't ever had to move kids around. Sure enough, the first buckling whose placenta had ruptured was upside down, backwards, coming rump first. He didn't make it. I did manage to save it's brother and sister, however, after getting them all sorted out and untangled.

That's what I've noticed with does that literally can NOT move their kids naturally. I've had a couple does have HUGE kids stuck (or like this doe, they were poorly presented) and literally NOT push at all though they were in labor or just stop pushing because they could NOT move the kid. Though they don't seem stressed, the kids would all be lost had I not known better. Which is why I always check to see where the kid is and make sure it's coming right. Once again, the doe was not stressed and many people who don't check wouldn't even think anything was wrong aside from the prolonged labor.

Qvrfullmidwife · #32 04/06/09, 03:40 PM

"Unnecessary intervention: checking presentation/helping when the doe has not been in labor for 1/2 hr-1 hr (or does not seem to be in trouble)."

To me this is like saying that it is unnecessary to give tetanus shots until your goat shows sign of tetanus because it isnt "natural". To me it is prevention. I guess by nature of definition one will never know when prevention is necessary because if it works all turns out right.

AshleyB · #33 04/06/09, 03:47 PM

I still consider myself to be very much new to goats. I have been through three kidding seasons now, and for the life of me, I haven't "been there" for ONE birth. The closest I got was about 100 yards away. This is not by choice either, I think my goats just like privacy. Thankfully, my girls seem to be proficient and prolific breeders, because so far we haven't lost one kid, and we just finished up our last kidding two weeks ago.

Now, I don't go to extraordinary efforts to catch a doe in labor either, we don't have any cameras in the barn, and I don't check in the middle of the night. But I do go out to check about every hour during the day when the time is drawing nigh. The one birth that I missed by 100 yards last year, I knew that she had another in there, and I stayed with her to make sure that she delivered the second okay. Well, I thought it seemed like she was having some trouble, so I ran inside to get my gloves, lube, etc. By the time I got back out she had had the kid, so I missed that one too!

deetu · #34 04/06/09, 04:18 PM

My very first kidding I had a two headed goat for a short while. (Mom was crying and baby was sticking out of Mom crying) I could not find the feet anywhere. My phone was down, so was the internet so I let the head come out, rubbed the udder and pulled during contractions. (saying please don't break, please don't break) Two more plopped right out after that. Figured if I could do that, I'm fine breeding goats.

I really think it depends on the goat. You know your own goat. My oldest will not kid in front of me. She will cross her legs until I leave. This year, there was a baby waiting for me in the morning, all cleaned and fed but I KNEW there had to be another kid in there so I went in. She was already tightening up and not pushing until I was reaching in. I hit a mummy (yuck) first, then pulled another live kid out. If I didn't know her, I would have lost both the doe and second kid.

Another doe, which was a premie bottle baby always needs help. I checked on her, came back 30 mins later and she was in full scream. Big baby coming out face and one foot. Pushed it back in (they really, really don't like when you do that) found the other foot, then helped pull it out. I did go back in to check if there was another because she was large. I figured I had already been in there so it wouldn't matter.

I have two left that have never given me a problem so I don't think I will even need to intervine but I usually watch just in case.

shiandpete.1 · #35 04/06/09, 04:25 PM

I am not sure what is meant by intervene in this case. I am there for each and every birth, but do not go in unless absolutely necessary. But i do help clean faces and mouths and make sure that they are up and nursing. The way I look at it is I chose to breed them, it is my responsibility that mom and baby are healthy and happy.

kreddish · #36 04/06/09, 04:32 PM

I checked on Bella the mommy several times a day, post birth. Did not go in the pen and mess with her, but just wanted to make sure she was ok and not having any issues. Day or two before her lshe kidded... checked on her every 3 to 4 hours (I work from home, so this was not an issue). Day of her labor, abotu every two hours.. to make sure I did not find her exhausted and not able to deliver. Lucky us, she delivered by 4pm on a sunny and beautiful afternoon all on her own, and we were there to wittness the event, from 10-15 ft away. Now, if she had any issues.... I would have been there to help. This was our first kid at 3.5 lbs and as tall as no 2 pencil... most exiting experience I have been thru.

Qvrfullmidwife · #37 04/06/09, 04:42 PM

I guess I intervene but to me though it may not be "necessary", it is smart. If you check before a doe has started to seriously push and there is a leg (or two) back, it isnt that hard to pull them forward and then mom can push easily and well. If you dont check and mom pushed until he head is through the cervix and cant go further and there isnt the room to get in there to pull the legs down...well then you have a world of hurt on your hands that a quick check an hour earlier would have avoided. So yeah, I intervene a little bit to try to avoid a big intervene later that may not have near the happy result that the little intervene does. :lol

QoTL · #38 04/07/09, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qvrfullmidwife

"Unnecessary intervention: checking presentation/helping when the doe has not been in labor for 1/2 hr-1 hr (or does not seem to be in trouble)."

To me this is like saying that it is unnecessary to give tetanus shots until your goat shows sign of tetanus because it isnt "natural". To me it is prevention. I guess by nature of definition one will never know when prevention is necessary because if it works all turns out right.

I certainly understand what you are saying. If you read the rest of my post, I believe I said I don't see anything wrong with going in even if it doesn't fit this criteria, just that I, personally, don't see it as necessary.

I also admitted I'm new, and feeling along as I go. My one doe that was in trouble was OBVIOUSLY not pushing hard enough for anything to happen. Not all animals are the same. A lot of this, I'm sure, is gut feeling about our own goats, and knowing what they need and what they don't.

I do think sometimes people are in too quick a hurry to help, but then again I'm sure lots of folks don't help when it is necessary. We all just have to trust ourselves and do what we feel we need to.

chamoisee · #39 04/07/09, 07:55 AM

I was thinking some more about this. I wonder if some people relate to a goat's labor the way we do human labors. 8 hours of pushing wouldn't be that unusual for a human, but would signal real trouble for a goat, and being in labor all day and night in a human would be fairly normal, but would mean disaster, give up and die, for a goat.

sadie6447 · #40 04/07/09, 08:15 AM

Most of my herd is wild and I think trying to intervene is more stress full on the does. I walk around like I am ignoring them but I get to see what I want to see. When the doe goes into labor or starts gooing up I put her in her own 8X10 shed with plenty of fresh bedding and such. The sheds have windows So I can peek in with out disturbing them. I do however wanna be there when the birth happens so when it gets serious I am there but I do not touch them unless they come to me. Somethimes they are very tame right befor and after labor then go back to being wild when I open the door for her to get out the next day. I do not bother the doe unless I have to. I never had a problem until this year and I think it is because of the clymedia. I did have to go in twice this year but like I said I was expecting it because of the herd problem. I love my goats and try to put the least amount of stress on them as I can. It drives me nuts cause I wanna be a second mommy, but all well. I do have kidding pin though they go there about a month before delivery. Then they hit the shed when labor hits.