picked up my new goat babies!!

[LittleRedHen]

I drove my 2 hour one way trip to get goat kids today! I am quite pleased with what I came home with (and I will get pictures up in a few minutes!) I had gotten one gallon of goat milk to transition them to the cows milk. I also picked up a bunch of vitamin D whole milk.

So now here is my question. I made several goat coats/sweaters for them (and you will see them wearing them) should they be okay even tomorrow when it hits single digits overnight? There should not be any issue with drafts at all. Should I rig up a very secured heat lamp or should they be okay? I do not want house goats. I know some of you do that but for me they are farm animals and they need to stay outside. I had house goats before and they made a mess. I have my house in tip top clean shape this time (didn't before) so I dont want to make my house an extension of the barn. So a heat lamp is the best I could do. There is four of them so I think they should be able to CUDDLE!! together. They are a little upset over the coat/sweaters on them and I found the Nubian laying down in the middle of the calf hutch by herself and I quickly scooped her up and made her a slightly bigger coat/sweater as the other one seemed to restrict her too much. Then I placed her with the others for warmth.

I have had newborn goats before but its been about 2 years so I sorta feel like a newbie all over again. If they start having the runs it means they are having too much milk right? One of them has a bit of a wet tail.. so far shes extremely energenic and is the spunkiest of them all! i hope it just means she was eating too much and nothing serious

[goatkid]

If the babies have always lived outside since they were born, they should do fine in a draft free goat house bedded with clean, dry straw. Though I am open to house goats here, if my babies are a few days old and used to living outside, they don't come into the house unless they are sick. Only newborn kids born in cold weather come into the house and they are transitioned outside as soon as they are able to jump out of their totes. Sometimes, goats will tend to hang out by breed, so you are going to want to be sure your Nubian is cuddling with the others. I've never used a heat lamp, but Montana is not as humid as the midwest. A secure heat lamp should be adequate to keep them warm on a cold night. Just be sure they don't wander out of their warm house and sleep in the snow. Baby goats can get the runs from either too much milk or a change in diet. Keep an eye on that baby. If her poop doesn't firm up soon, there is a product you can use called Diarsanyl that helps stop scouring.

[Backfourty,MI.]

Can't wait to see your new little ones! How old are they? I have 1 nubian we bought last summer, nigerian dwarfs & mini nubians. Our nubian bonded with our oldest nigerian dwarf doe & snuggle together most nights, they all get along pretty good anyways.

I use hot water bottles under old towels for babies to snuggle on, they love them.

[LittleRedHen]

i think two of them are about 2 days old.. and the other two are about a week. The biggest one (and oldest) is the one with a bit of the runs. I think that im going to get some coccistat stuff when i head to town tomorrow just in case its that.

I have a 55 gallon barrel cut in half and then tied up at the bottom of the calf hutch that they are in. then i have a heavy wood pallet up against the door so there is no way they can get out and it should be heavy enough it will only take a human to move it. They have 6 inches of straw to sleep on. I went out to check on them and they are all sleeping in the barrel.. silly goats

[Backfourty,MI.]

All of them sleeping in the barrel together would be a priceless picture too I bet!

[LittleRedHen]

password is goats

http://s73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ermanda/goats/

[6e]

Cute goats and you did a good job on the sweaters too. :-)

[LittleRedHen]

well the scours seems to be going away already. I think I know what the trouble was- milk replacer! That woman had told me several times over that she uses milk replacer and that is what she felt was best for baby goats. The goat looked good this morning and didn't have any signs of scouring (she had two feedings of goat milk since i have had her) so i am being optimistic that she will be good and healthy she is the spunkiest little goat ever!

[mrs.H]

Photobucket will not let me see you pics. I most be doing something wrong.

[LittleRedHen]

6e was able tos ee them... if you get to a place where it asks for password the password is goats

[LittleRedHen]

hmmm says too many failed logins. I dont knwo how to fix that!

[LittleRedHen]

well i cannot sign into my account either for the same reason. I am going to guess someone (who needs to get a life)attempted to hack into the account? Perhaps later I can post the pictures directly

[6e]

I had to sign in twice before it let me in. The first time said failed login and I figured I mistyped it and tried it again and it worked. Easier to just post directly.

Sometimes baby goats will get scours from moving if they get stressed and even "if" she was feeding goat milk replacer, even a change in brand will bring on scours. We just feed ours whole milk from the store, raw whole cow milk if the cow is milking......which she's not at the moment, darn it.

[Cyngbaeld]

When I went to your pix, my computer wanted to use my password for my acct, I deleted it and put in goats and had no problem. If too many people are trying to view and get the password wrong there is a shut out period. I don't think anybody is trying to hack the site though.

Cute goats too.

[dustin biery]

LRH, hope you dont mind. Here are the pics of her goats.

[pygmybabies]

they are cute!!!!

[LittleRedHen]

Ooh! well thank you so much for posting them! if that site would upload faster i would have posted some more.

[Minelson]

Darling babies! Congrats to you !!

[Backfourty,MI.]

Congratulations on all the cute new little ones, your going to have so much fun with them!

[LittleRedHen]

The top goat ended up spending a little time in here as she was really shivering but shes about to head back out. Oh i cannot wait til Spring so I dont have to worry about how could it is outside