Her dam's milk is the best for her, but the most important thing is that she receive enough to eat. If she is needing more to eat, whole cow's milk should work for her. More colostrum would have been better, but if she's pooping ok, it did the trick to clean out the meconium. She should have gotten some immunity from mom with what you fed. I feel so bad that there is no vet available at night for emergencies. Mine came into the office after hours when I had a difficult labor.

I believe if your antibiotic is just straight up penicillin (and if you really are suppose to give it IM) it doesn't matter where you give it. Penicillin is a general antibiotic it goes where it is needed no matter where. I say this because there are antibiotic's that are body area/part specific. Now addressing the SC/IM ... I honestly don't remember ever giving antibiotic's IM it was always SC in all the years I worked at a Veterinarian hospital you might want to double check that script. You have the right to double check because mistake's can happen. Believe me my mother's dog is on phenobarbital for epilepsy(34.5mg tablets 1/2 tablet twice a day), she got the script filled one time and I saw the pills in the bottle they were the 100mg tablets! Thank god I caught it before she had given them to her dog. And yes the vet clinic had a new person there filling scripts... so if in doubt, question it!!

On another note I showed my daughter's the birthing pictures of your new baby, I thought they were really cool and the baby is just adorable. My daughter's didn't like the first 2 pics they thought it was "ewwww" so guess neither of them are going to follow in mom's footsteps. Congrats on the new baby and am glad to hear that mom is ok...though now I am worried cause one of my doe's is a pygmy and pregnant and you all freaked me out about pygmy's birthing!

Well I finally got her to nurse off mom. Mom is still sore but she is allowing it.

And that's one of the reasons I don't have little goats, I don't think my hands would ever fit.

Glad she and one of the babies are ok.

Speaking of EWWW- just a tiny tip for the next time...
Grab an empty feed sack and put it under the business end of the doe.
The kid stays cleaner and less cleanup after the fact.
Glad she is nursing- she looks plenty spunky.
B~

Congrats! The baby is darling! I'm sorry you amd mama goat had to go through such an ordeal...yikes! Some preparation H would be good for the pain on her hoo-hoo. Thanks for posting the pic...what a doll :)

Congratulations on the lovely little doe! Are you going to keep her? You should! Sorry about the other ones, though, but its great that mama is ok! :) When I was reading this thread, I was sure it was going to end badly.

She is a darling little doeling! Glad Momma and baby are well, sorry about the others.

Congrats on Faith, she is precious. I am also glad your doe made it through the whole thing, she is a tough little cookie. I am so glad to hear mom is nursing her after everything she has been though.

I am sorry for your loss of the other two babies.

What a cutie! So glad to see momma is letting her nurse now.

We give pen SQ in the skin around the shoulders (yes on the bottle it says IM, but that is not what we do), but if I were told by a goat knowledgable vet specifically to give it IM I'd give it in the thick part of the ham/rump area.

I'm not trying to start an argument and I know that everyone has a different opinion on things, but NEVER give a goat a shot IM. Believe me it can very easily send them into shock. Goats have too fast of a metabolism for IM shots. I lost one about a year ago because a vet give her a shot IM. She went into shock within about an hour and I didn't have any epinephin or benidryl to give her. Even with SQ you still run a slight chance of it if you hit a blod vessel but the chances are much less than IM.
Again it's just my opinion, but it is based on experience.

I think an IM shot can send any animal into shock.

I've given lots of IM shots to my goats. Never had a problem. I always pull the plunger out a bit first to make sure its not in a blood vessel. :shrug: If it is, give it somewhere else.

Maybe someone else here will know for sure if goats are more susceptible to shock from IM injections. :)

I'm sorry, but you left her to die? You decided that you were too tired and frustrated and you walked out of that barn and left her lying there in pain with two dead babies inside her and you went inside and went to sleep? Knowing that she was out there. Possibly slowly dieing? I'm sorry, I just don't understand that. If you no longer want to continue trying, then fine. But at least put the poor animal down. Don't leave her out there to suffer like that. I know the out come is that she is alive and she has a baby. But when you walked out of that barn, you expected her to be dead in the morning. I just don't how you can leave an animal to suffer.

It wasnt my choice. If I could I would have stayed out there all night trying. Do not go off on me, My family chose what they thought was right, It all worked out in the end and I will not put up with this at all.

I am a veterinary technician, I do not like animals suffering at all. Like I said do not act like that. I said when I posted that it was something I didnt want to do. It wasnt my choice and Im not going to deal with you. It wasnt my fault and I did all that I could while I was out there to get that baby out. I didnt know she had 2 babies in her at the time, I had a feeling that there might be 2 but their wasnt. I didnt expect her to be alive in the morning and I feel bad that I thought that. Going off on me now is not going to change the situation at all.

i very much agree with you. it was a very bad choice this family made.
as a tech vet, she should have know better.

yes, when you left her, this was your choice. you could have stayed with her until she either had her kids or put her down. if you would have been just a school girl(that was my assumption) i could have understand a little bit, but you are a vet tech????? shame on you.

In the end it doesnt really matter what you guys say, it has been done and she is alive. No use looking back on what is done.

I am not a registered vet tech but I do most of the same things a rvt does. Also considering the fact that I am only 17, might change some things.

Ok, so I deleted what I was going to post...

But I still have to say, bottom line is you walked away. There is NO excuse for that - especially since you are a vet tech you should know even better. I too am a vet tech and would NEVER let anybody do that - a stranger or my grandma - I would force the issue or call somebody that could. Shame on you, this was selfish and lazy and she is the one that had to pay for it. Maybe not with her life like you thought she was going to, but still with a ton of un-needed misery and 2 dead kids.

I am glad that the she and doeling survived. I hope she recovers with speed. That doeling is sired by the Boer no doubt, and sure is a cute little thing.

So sad that it doesn't matter to you. You are not a vet tech - doing some of the things one does doesn't make you one and you surely don't think or act like one either. I hope you at least learned something from this.

It may have turned out alright as far as her being alive now. But look what she went through while she waited for you to come back to her. How would you feel if you were in labor and the baby wasn't coming and the doctor got tired and gave up and walked out? If you had posted on a dog forum that you had a dog and a puppy was stuck so you just left her there expecting to find her dead, you would have got the same reaction from other board members. Or any animal board for that matter.

You had ample warning that this delivery might be a train wreck. The minute you thought she could have been bred by a boer you should have aborted the babies or been saving for a c section. You said at one point you were prepared to put her down and yet you didn't. You walked away to let her die. You didn't do everything you could have for this poor doe. Not by a long shot. If you are old enough to be a vet tech (even and unlicensensed one) you are old enough to make a decision to stay and with and help that goat.

I too hope you learned something from this. You are young. Old enough to know better really but young none the less.

no, it doesn't. what you did was animal cruelty.

if you go back and read all the posts, there were a couple of people that advised you to be repaired and put her down, and still you turned your back and let her suffer.
you don't need to come here and defend yourself. you need to go in your room and really think about what you did. only then can you hopefully see and learn. and hopefully you will never turn around and let an animal in your care suffer again.

I agree what happened was wrong in just leaving her to just do it on her own.
HOWEVER I dont just blame her, she is after all a minor and we werent there to know what her parents may or may not have said for her to do. She could have been told to go in by her parents, not wanting her to watch this goat die, who really knows?
NOT that I think this correct at all just saying she probably isnt the sole person responsible for the decision.
HOPEFULLY the entire family has thought this scenario through, maybe she can advise the rest of her family that this type of behavior is unacceptable?

I agree with ShyAnne. It sounds to me like her parents were guiding her in this. I would never leave a goat in this type of situation, but I'm an adult. I'm hoping the parents will realize that if they are going to have animals for their children, they should provide the same type of responsible medical care for them as they would for the kids.

OK! After reading about the whole situation I have to say shame on the people on this forum for putting the poor kid down. She is a minor..hence 17 years old. While I completely disagree with leaving the goat in that condition overnight she had no choice obviously, her parents are the ones who made the choice for her as they are the ones who pay the vet bill or would have bought the bullet to put the goat down. This forum is supposed to be a place where people can come and ask questions and hopefully get some sort of answer from other people who raise goats. This is not a place where a person should have to defend themself because others disagree with what they have done. I am disappointed in the people who attacked her. And I am one of the people who told her to prepare to put her down if they wouldn't do a c-section.

I would like to tell Kiera that I am glad that the doe made it through a night of misery and that she got a healthy baby from the whole situation. I do have to agree that if in the future you have doubts as to who bred a doe, lute her and take away that wonder.

17 is more than old enough to stand up for what is right. If she had pushed it with her parents, she would have said so. She would have said, she pushed her parents to help the goat, that she did everything she could to get them to either continue to help or put the goat down.

I am not going say shame on you.. I am glad that your doe had a baby but still I will NEVER ever leave the baby in her all night. I cant do that. It is not good because it will kill the mother.. You are very lucky that your doe is alive..

We have nigerians and have a little buckling born this past week that looks just like him. And we don't have boer goats anywhere close to us, just nigerians! I'd upload a pic, but not sure how.
(Sandra)

Well this is the last time kierababy16 will probably come on and ask for advise. I am sure she feels bad enough. Its just so hard to be perfect at 17 years.

Well, clearly leaving the doe was not the best choice, and it is not something I would ever had done, but honestly, it sounded like her parents, who obviously would have been paying, weren't interested in doing much to help the goat, and I can see at 17 that she might have hoped the goat would be alive the next morning and delivered and such. It would have been hard for me at 17 and no way to get a vet out to say put the goat out of its misery because I'd have hoped she would go on to deliver and make it. . .
Granted, I would have stayed with the goat, but it wouldn't have been any help had this girl have stayed there, it doesn't sound like. If she couldn't get a vet and no adult there was willing to put the goat down, which they obviously weren't, then sitting there with the goat, though it sounds helpful, wouldn't have been.
I do think, considering, it seems a fair turn out, and let us hope she learned A GREAT deal from this, and let us hope her parents do not own goats on their own. . .they are greatly to blame.

Lilprairiemutt, Not all kids push their parents. WE WERE NOT THERE. Over and over she says "we". She stated that they tried to call several vets, to no avail.
And a 17 yr old girl can say she is ready to put down her goat, but to actually do it is a different story, and with a promise of a vet visit in a few hours...
Sometimes choices are not clear black and white. And in the long run, the choice was right, the doe is alive and so is one kid.

Again not condoning leaving the doe. Just stating we were not there and we dont know the entire situation. We dont know exactly what went on.;)

Kiera, glad everything ended up working out ok and doe and doeling are doing ok. I know it is terribly hard to make that decision about putting a doe down in this type of situation. I had a ND doe kid last spring and she was bred to a ND buck. She was huge, and i was really hoping she had several in there. It ended up being one huge doeling. She went in to labor and all seemed to be going well, I saw the tips of the hooves come out then nothing. Went in to check and while everything was coming out in the right order, there was absolutely no room for her to get that kid out. I tried positioning and pulling for HOURS, meanwhile trying to get a hold of a vet (it was a sunday). At a few points I thought the kid is obviously dead at this point, I am going to pull her out even if it is in pieces and hopefully save the doe. Well there was just no way it was coming out, so we made the decision to put down the doe and do an c-section in the field just in case there was another in there. After 4 1/2 hours of that kid with her front hooves sticking out of mama and she was ALIVE!! And the only one. It was sad to put down the doe but we would have lost both if we hadn't and I was just amazed as I thought for sure the kid was dead. My husband wasn't home and had the key to his gun lock or we would have ended her suffering earlier but at least we saved the doeling.

Very good post Shyanne. I am astounded at the "shame" being tossed around here. I am hoping it is a result of holiday stress and not going to be the norm here. :( If the op learned anything, it was not to give out too much information that can be judged on a forum.

(Very good post Shyanne. )
This is a quote I really love
"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us" -Marcel Proust

People can tell you what you should or should not do or what they would or would not do in the same situation, but in truth when something really happens its a whole different ballgame.

Kierababy16 -at 17 I knew you could not be a RVT :) I just hope that you stick it out and do go to Vet Tech school and get your registration, it is an exciting field to work in but you will never make decent money to support yourself until you become registered.

[QUOTE=wintrrwolf;4165375](Very good post Shyanne. )
This is a quote I really love
"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us" -Marcel Proust

People can tell you what you should or should not do or what they would or would not do in the same situation, but in truth when something really happens its a whole different ballgame.


It's not our place to judge people here I thought we were to try & help them.

She sure is a sweetie & I'm so glad everything worked out for momma & Faith! I'm voting for Boer cross too!

There was no promise of a vet visit ina few hours because the expected to find the doe DEAD in the morning. Even my ten year old would argue with me if I tried to walk out and leave an animal to suffer like that. This girl didn't come here asking for advice and in fact ignored every piece of advice offered. She never said anything about feeling awful about how this poor doe had to suffer. In fact she showed a rather indifferent attitude about it. What happened with that goat was animal abuse pure and simple and don't feel bad about saying so.

But since it is acceptable to leave a doe like that as long as you are under the age of eighteen, then I wash my hands of it.

How are mama and baby today, Kierababy16? Still doing ok I hope?

So the people in 3rd world country who have a baby stuck should be put down when no doctor is avaliable huh?
Your logic is impresive.
In the hospital people die without us putting them down.
Maybe some pain meds were in order, but it was her decision about what to do with her doe.

Whoa. I am shocked at what I am reading. I am cannot believe the flaming going on here. I thought this was a civil forum. I can tell you this, at 17 years old, my parents were in control. Period. You may not agree with what was done, but that does not change the fact that it is already done. You cannot change anything. May I suggest we try to change how we respond to something like, next time try this, or if you are in this situation again may I suggest whatever.

I think Kiera learned from this experience. She seemed unconcerned at the time of the op, probably just from inexperience. She seemed to slowly realize why we were concerned, and she's seen the bad outcome of the event. Nobody who has ever tried to pull a baby that's too big to come out will ever forget it. She also now realizes the outcome could've been much worse.

I'm not condoning anything that happened, from the breeding on. I indicated such in my posts. But have none of you had to learn by screwing up? Did you know everything when you were 17? Has nobody or no thing ever had to suffer from a mistake you made? Ever? I know I was in total la la land when I was her age, she seems pretty well grounded.

Get off her back, she learned from it and can't do anything to change it now.