does aborted

jordan · #1 03/25/10, 01:53 AM

I had two does abort today and I'm trying to get some ideas as to why. In 9 years I've never had even one doe abort late in the pregnancy let alone two! I am positive of the due dates on both and neither had uddered up yet. Both look and act healthy. Same hay (from my field), no grain, other than putting a recently kidded doe back out there, no changes in anything but the weather (nicer now). I was gone for 3 days so am not sure if anyone got knocked around, but these two are both very laid back and are adept at avoiding any skirmishes.

One aborted 15 days early (from day 150) with 2 fully formed kids and 1 malformed. She was ultra sounded 2 weeks ago and we saw the heart beating on at least one kid.
The second doe kidded 24 days early with a fully formed doe. I did not see any afterbirth on her but she kidded out in the pasture so may have already disposed of it. Probably a dumb question, but is it possible to abort one kid early and still have any inside? She still looks fairly large, but I am not going to go in to check for any others in case she still has any viable kids in there.

This is not turning out to be a good kidding season with my first doe having to have a c-section (lost both kids), my second doe kidded with 3 but one died that same day and now these two... I only bred 13 does...
Lois

Backfourty,MI. · #2 03/25/10, 05:29 AM

I had a FF deliver triplets last year about 2 weeks or so early. They were all 3 dead. I called that aborting too & I was thinking mine got butted by another goat probly. I had never had that happen before either but was very disturbing. I know how you feel though & it's rouegh seeing it.
I was thinking there could be some nutritional deficiency too but don't know what it would be. All of my goats were healthy last year & still are this year.
Hopefully someone with more expertise will jump in & give you some ideas. I'll be glad to hear them as well. Hoping it never happens again though, to neither one of us.

nehimama · #3 03/25/10, 07:01 AM

I don't have an answer for your question, but I am so sorry for your losses.

wintrrwolf · #4 03/25/10, 07:50 AM

It will drive you nuts trying to figure it out I know. Lets see I read somewhere that certain evergreen tree's can cause a doe to abort if they eat to much of it.
Was thinking its warmer, here we have new green grass and clover shooting up and the goats have been going to town on it...and read that this can cause enterotoxemia...but I really don't know, both of you are further up north so your weather and environment is different than mine.

susanne · #5 03/25/10, 08:18 AM

two on one one day might be just coincident. i don't think that butting had anything to do with it.
could it be that they where stressed, for example a predator or stray dogs?
other then that, only lab test might tell you if it was infection or nutritional.
sorry this happened.

madness · #6 03/25/10, 09:31 AM

We had what the vet called an abortion - it was only 7 days early. But the vet is convinced that the last of the triplets, who was simply not "right", probably died in utero and the doe proceeded to try to get rid of it, thus expelling all of the kids. Fortunately, we had one survive that.

I suppose it's technically possible to abort one fetus and retain other viable ones since they all have separate sacs, but I bet it's exceedingly rare if it does ever happen.

Sorry about the situation, I think it's just one of those things. All three of our kiddings have had incidents so far and we have three left. PLEASE let them be normal!

susanne · #7 03/25/10, 11:18 AM

once the cervix opens all content will be expelled. i doubt there is a chance that she will continue her pregnancy.

Pony · #8 03/25/10, 05:20 PM

Wow.

I have no idea what happened (wonder if they got hold of some new greenery that was bad for them, though).

So very sorry for your loss.

bloogrssgrl · #9 03/25/10, 08:35 PM

I'm really sorry this happened to you. I don't really have a whole lot to suggest other than to echo Pony and Suzanne's suggestions. It seems too coincidental. Is there a possiblilty that there was something growing in a certain section of your field that got baled in with the hay they had most recently? Other than that, I don't have a clue.

But please do keep us posted on what, if anything, you find out. It would seem this is a situation we could all learn something from.

betsy h. · #10 03/25/10, 09:54 PM

do you have cats around? With these aborting so close together, I always suspect toxoplasmosis when that happens. And the drug of choice in these cases is tetracycline.

One doe, itr happens. Two or more all together, think problems....

dbarjacres · #11 04/02/10, 04:13 PM

Oh, so sorry Lois. That really sucks. I sure hope it was just coincidence that both aborted and nothing more serious. I just lost my first doe, ever, in the first kidding of the season, we did save the beautiful twins tho. Darrin and I are both on high alert now. Best wishes for the rest of the season.