Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Snowbelle's legacy

I gave Snowbelle the Dex and Lute early Sunday to induce labor on Monday afternoon.

She started having some weird short contractions about 5:30 PM. After 6:00 and nothing showing, I called my friend, Angela, to come over, and she held Snowbelle while I went in. There was a kid rear and some other kid's front legs there. Finally got the hind legs of the one who was presenting tail first and pulled him. He was very dead. The next one was upside down and with the head turned back, but alive. Third one was head back, too.

Wound up with a live white doeling with wattles and a live apricot buckling. The buckling bled badly from his umbilical cord, as it broke off short what with all the turning and digging I had to do in her uterus. He's a little lethargic. I finally tubed some colostrum (from Angela's goats) into him just before 10. The doeling is sucking the bottle OK. Not great, but OK.

My next door neighbor came and put Snowbelle down because the vet couldn't get here. (See previous thread about her bad infection in the damaged half of her udder.)

The lady who is going to foster the kids has stuff to do early in the morning, and hopefully will take them by noon on Tuesday.

I will probably feel better about this in a couple of days, but I'm not happy with the whole thing right now.

Snowbelle's delivery the *first* time was JUST like this. Kids tangled, backwards presentations, etc. Very frustrating.

I feel like the whole saga of Snowbelle's udder/teat issue, starting last August, and letting her deliver these kids may have been a mistake. I'm second guessing myself pretty badly right now.

Keeping does with udder issues is not good management, and I don't think I'll do it again.

Edited to add: The kids did well overnight, waking at 1:00 AM and 4:55 AM for bottles. After it warmed up a bit outside, I took them outside for some sunshine! The doeling is the lighter colored one with wattles, and her name is Jubilee. The pale apricot buckling has no name yet.




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