NEWBORN CHECKLIST

Unless the dam is having kidding problems, including weather related issues that required your immediate assistance, let her clean her kids and get colostrum into them without interference. Articles on what to do if dystocia (kidding problems) occurs are available on the Articles page at www.tennesseemeatgoats.com.)

IF any of the following conditions exist, here is what I do:

1) Make sure the kid is breathing freely. Immediately upon birth, I clean out the kid's airways if any signs of respiratory distress exist.

2) Once the dam has the kid cleaned and fed, dip the umbilical cord in iodine up to and including the point where it is attached to the kid's body. If the weather is wet, you may need to do this before the dam feeds her kids.

Check the umbilical cord where it attaches to the kid's body. If it is too long or touching the ground, using sharp fingernail scissors, cut it shorter so that it doesn't catch on something and cause a tear (hernia), requiring veterinary care.

3) Inspect the kid for fully-formed hooves. They will be soft at time of birth but should harden quickly.

4) Is there a rectal opening? Atresia ani (no rectal opening) isn't a frequent occurrence, but does happen. Atresia ani is not repairable; the kid must be euthanized immediately before it suffers a painful death.

5) Check inside the mouth for a cleft palate (a length-wise split in its hard roof). The kid can survive for a while but will do poorly as it grows. A cleft palate may be heritable, so it isn't a trait that you want to perpetuate through breeding.

6) Look at the kid's lower front teeth. A full-term doeling will have teeth completely erupted from the gums, while a full-term buckling may have teeth only partially out of the gums. Male or female, teeth completely in the gums means "premature," and special care will need to be taken to make sure that the kid survives. Full-term and premature kids can be born in the same litter; it all depends upon adequate nutrition in utero.

7) Put your finger in the kid's mouth to determine if it has a suck reflex. A premature kid often lacks this reflex; you will have to milk the dam and stomach tube colostrum into it until its suck reflex develops. (See my article on when and how to stomach tube weak kids.)

A good protocol for premature kids is to give them the following: 1/2 to 1 cc of Vitamin B1 (thiamine) SQ or IM. If your area is selenium deficient, 1/2 cc BoSe (selenium with Vitamin E) should be given SQ. Thiamine helps "wake up the brain" in a premature kid, and Bo Se (selenium with Vitamin E) helps with symptoms of White Muscle Disease (also known as Nutritional Muscular Dystrophy) that affect the kid's ability to stand. Kids can have trouble standing for many reasons other than selenium deficiency, i.e. legs folded from crowding in utero or from "weak kid syndrome" (hypothermia/starvation/dehydration). See my article on weak and abandoned newborns on the Articles page of www.tennesseemeatgoats.com.

8) Inspect the dam's udder and teats. If the seal is still over the teat opening, carefully remove it with your fingernail and check for free-flowing colostrum from both teats. Does she have colostrum? Is she developing or has she already developed mastitis or congested udder? I have articles on both conditions on my website.

Can the kid reach the teats? Are they too low to the ground? Too high? Are the shape of the teats suitable for the kid's mouth to suckle? An overly-large teat will be difficult for the newborn's mouth to grasp and nurse. Does the dam have non-functioning "fish" teats from which the kid is unsuccessfully trying to get milk? (Do not clip off fish teats.)

Does one teat have better milk flow than the other? If so, the kid is going to nurse the free-flowing teat to the exclusion of the other. Are multiple kids nursing only one side of the udder? Milk the unused side, save and freeze any extra colostrum (and subsequent milk) for future emergency use, and coax the kids to nurse both sides for several days until they figure out that both teats are available. Kids tend to latch onto one teat as their own and not change.

9) Has the dam's milk come down? If the kid's dam doesn't have milk, you must foster the kid onto another dam with sufficient milk or bottle feed it if you cannot remedy the problem quickly. If the kid is premature, its dam may not come into milk for several days and you will have to feed it for it to survive. Prescription Oxytocin can be used to try to bring a dam into milk, but that won't work if the underlying problem is that she didn't receive proper nutrition during her pregnancy. See my article entitled Goat Medications and How to Use Them.

Take the kid's rectal temperature to make sure it is above 100*F before you put colostrum into its stomach. Never put milk products into a goat with a body temperature of less than 100*F. See my article on Weak Kids to learn why.

10) Make sure that kids get fed in a timely manner. Some dams clean their kids and feed them as they are born. Others clean each kid as it is born and wait to feed them all after the last kid comes out. Weather conditions and lengthy kidding time can make the latter process a problem, sometimes resulting in hypothermic or dead kids.

11) Newborns and very young kids have difficulty controlling internal body temperature. Regular ingestion of adequate small amounts of milk helps regulate body temperature. If the dam is feeding the kid, feel its tummy as it stands supporting itself to make sure the stomach is full. Feel with both hands in front of the back legs for tummy firmness (not hard and not sloshy). A kid is always going to feel more full than it actually is if you lift it off its legs to check.

If you have no alternative to bottle feeding, read my article on how to feed bottle babies. Many people overfeed them on milk, inducing Floppy Kid Syndrome, resulting in their deaths.

12) Some colostrum is so thick that it is difficult for the kid to suckle out of the udder. You may have to milk it out, slightly dilute it with water, and tube it into the kid a few times. Make sure that the dam has plenty of water to drink to help dilute too thick colostrum.

13) Put water buckets out of reach of kids because starving kids will drink water to fill their tummies and you will soon find them dead.

14) Some newborns have hardened feces that becomes stuck to their rears. You will have to peel or soak it off so that they can continue to poop. Other kids may become constipated, requiring that you administer a soapy warm-water enema with a 3-cc Luer slip syringe.

15) A kid is born without a working immune system. All of the immunities that it gets come through its dam's colostrum and milk. This is why you should never buy bred does: the immunities in her milk are for the location at which she was bred and not where she kidded.

16) Don't assume that because the kid is nursing now, it will always be nursing. When dam and kids are turned out to pasture with other dams and their kids, it is easy to get lost or not keep up. Missing one meal can be enough to result in a kid's starvation or hypothermia. Being bonded in a kidding pen and bonded in a pasture setting are two entirely different situations.

Kids should be checked for adequately full tummies every day for the first two weeks of life. Once a kid gets old enough to eat some solid food, it stands an improved chance of surviving if it isn't getting adequate amounts of milk.

Suzanne W. Gasparotto, Onion Creek Ranch, Texas 2.1.20

The author, Suzanne Gasparotto, hereby grants to local goat publications and club newsletters, permission to reprint articles published on the Onion Creek Ranch website under these conditions: THE ARTICLE MUST BE REPRODUCED IN ITS ENTIRETY AND THE AUTHOR'S NAME, ADDRESS, AND CONTACT INFORMATION MUST BE INCLUDED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE REPRINT. We would appreciate notification from any clubs or publications when the articles are used. (A copy of the newsletter or publication would also be a welcome addition to our growing library of goat related information!)

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