[Laurel_Haven]

Our Dixie kidded yesterday afternoon with twin bucks. The first buckling born was normal and healthy and is doing well. The second buckling born passed away today at 3 pm. He was born with a major defect and we knew he would not survive for long. We were told he would be dead within hours but he lived for over 24 hours. It was the saddest thing to just let him lie there and die like that. We are at this time going to have a necroscopy done to find out why? Something is wrong as this is not the first kid we have lost lately. We had never lost a kid for 3 years of breeding and now this last year since moving to SC we have lost 6 kids.
We can’t do this anymore and are thinking of selling off our herd with the exception of keeping a couple for pets. My daughters and I used to love kiddings and now we are so fearful of losing those babies. My daughters don’t even want to be there anymore when does are delivering. And this is why we were doing it, to do it together and now it is just no fun and is tearing us apart every time we lose a sweet baby.
First we are probably going to sell off the bucks, we were even intending to bring in a new buck in December, but I am not so sure now if we will as he will just be sold right off anyway. That wouldn't be fair to him. Then after our does have kidded we will probably sell most of them but keep a couple of the "special" girls as pets and companions. So if anyone is interested let me know this Spring. But they will go to "good" homes only. It will be hard enough parting with them so the least I can do is find them great loving homes to go to.
Well thanks for listening, and right now I don’t know what else to say or do. I need some answers as to why this is happening or we will no longer be breeding our does in the future. It is just to hard to deal with anymore.
Tina

 

[trob1]

I am really sorry this is happening to you and your babies. I hope you get to the bottom of this soon and you can adjust what is needed so you can go back to joyfull kiddings. You will be in my thoughts.

Congrats on the little buckling that is doing well.

 

[kelebek]

I am so sorry for the loss of the babies! It is so hard to see the young ones that did not have a chance at life be taken.

My heart goes out to you and your family.

Cherish the little man that you were gifted, and treat him like gold!

Are the ones that you lost all sired by the same buck? or are the does all related somehow. I wonder if there is a genetic gene being passed around..... Just a thought.

 

[alyssa_romine]

where are the pics????? we need pics of the baby

 

[fcnubian]

I'm sorry you lost the one buck kid. It's always hard to lose them.

Congrats on the new buckling.

 

[liz]

I am glad to hear that Dixie is fine and that you have one healthy baby....sorry you lost the second one, I'm sure it is for the better, especially if there was a defect with him. We all know how hard it is when we lose our "babies" big and small, please wait to see why before you make a hasty decision...the joys certainly out number the heartbreak with goats....and please, I would love to see a picture of Dixies little boy....have you thought of a name yet?

 

[laststraw]

I am glad that the one little guy is doing well. I am so very sad to hear of your losses though... I cannot imagine it. My heart goes to you and your family.

I thought that, too, when I first read your post: could it be something genetic? We lost almost a whole litter of pups at the Denali Park kennel once to a genetic disorder where the tracheas did not develop as they grew - so they outgrew their windpipes. Horrible. Only one pup, Pixie, survived. We also have a rescued Australian Shepherd that is completely blind, and - after doing a lot of research - found that that is also a recessive genetic disorder in the breed.

Anyway, just thinking "out loud." Hope you find a resolution to the issue. I know you will do what is best for your family and goats. You must know you have support here.

 

[fritzie]

i am sorry to hear about your loss. don't do any thing hasty till you find out what is going on. i think we have all had bad years in the past. my first year was real bad & i was ready to give up but things did get better after that.

 

[cute kids]

sometimes a year like this is just a roll of the dice; you might now go ten years and never loose even one. do check out the possibility of a genetic cause; i am glad you are having the necropsy. hopefully it will shed some light on the problem.
let the frolicking of your little buckling help you to remember why you wanted to do this, and try to not make any hasty decisions. i am glad you will be having other kids soon, too.
maybe if the vet could put a kid down if a sure death is imminent, you would know the kid was at peace and not have to see it suffer. still births are so hard, but watching a little one fade is probably worse.
good luck. go hug that little guy

 

[redneck_acres]

Have you checked your pastures for possible poisonous plants? Most times goats wont eat them-but if your does do get a hold of something bad it could be what is causing the problems with the kids.It hasn't been a good buck year here between fighting pnemonia and stones. Thankfully the does have all been okay.

 

[cute kids]

i think toxins from a plant or poison of some kind would effect BOTH twins, not just one....

 

[sweetgoats]

Tina,
I am so sorry to hear about all the rough times you are having.
Can i ask what was wrong with the buck when it was born? You said you new it would not live. Was it a normal delivery, (Head, hoofs), and all that? Please try to fill us in so maybe we can help you.
What kind of hay are you feeding? Could it have Mustard weed, (flix weed), or something else in it. Blister beetle are really really bad in Kansas. Here in CO, they are not even allowing Kansas hay in here. Now not all hay is infested with blister Beetles from Kansas, but they are not taking a chance.

:grouphug: Hugs from COLORADO

 

[bigoakfarm]

Hi Tina,
I don't know if it helps but I had to sell my entire ND herd in Jan. 2005 because we had bought a new place and our old one sold SUPER fast. We had zero fences, barn, etc at the new place and 3 weeks to be completely cleared out of the old one. :-( Up to that point, I had had 3 easy kidding seasons with goats. (2 years with NDs and never the first problem.) I had brought in breeding animals from all over the country and in 3 seasons, I had ONE stillborn kid who was one of triplets. I really thought as long as I took care of my herd all my kidding seasons would be that way because I knew what I was doing, of course.

A few months later, in April 2005, I started to rebuild my herd. I was still really careful about where I got my breeding stock, still testing my herd,vaccinating, deworming, etc...just the same as I had always done it and the '06 kidding season was a nightmare! In that one spring, I had 2 stillborns, 1 kid lost to a stray dog, 1 bred doe lost to pnuemonia, 1 super nice adult doe lost to a staph infection, 1 doe kid was born healthy but died later (due to the cold, I guess, even though she was completely dry and bouncy when I left her.) In a nutshell, everything that could have gone wrond, went wrong. I was just so frustrated I wanted to get out of goats completely but I stayed with it antother year to try and recover some of the money I had spent on the herd and those gigantic vet bills in 2006. My '07 kidding season was much, much better. I still had a stillborn and most everybody had bucks <grrrr> but it was still a better year.

I hope this was just one of those years for you and spring '08 will see you with your normal, happy, healthy kids again. I'm sure things will get better if you have the patience to hang on just a little longer.

 

[Laurel_Haven]

Thank you everyone for the kind words and support. At this time we are still feeling like we just can't do this anymore as it is just too heart wrenching. Maybe time or answers will make us feel different down the road. But we did this for the joy of those kiddings and they are not enjoyable anymore. We did expect the occasional mortality, but not like this.
We have ruled out genetics as they were sired by different bucks. We have had blood screenings on our does and came up with nothing out of the ordinary, all does and bucks came buck healthy with no diseases, bacterial or viral infections. We have browsed through our pasture looking for some type of poisonious/toxic plants, so far we have found nothing that is consumed enough to cause this, but our wooded pasture is so large we could be missing something I guess. We are having people come out to test our water & soil next, this is our first full year here in SC and we have well water whereas back in PA we were on the city water line. Our vet has looked into our feeding/mineral/feeding program and has so far found nothing to be deficient. We just can't figure it out. Hopefully the necroscopy turns up a clue or answer for us this time.
As for this buckling born with a defect, he had no tail or anus, and only one eye. Seemed lifeless and never stood and was very weakly. This is the first deformity we had. He was expected to die within the first few hours, had no colostrum at all. Our vet said just let him pass away on his own as he can not survive. Well he did and had to be euthanized the next day after living for 26 hours on his own. He was a little fighter, and this just made it all the worse on us each hour he fought for his life. The other four were stillborn (2 had detatched cords at birth) (2 were delivered by C-section and were mummified) and 1 just did not thrive from birth and died at 5 weeks old. But all seemed healthy and normal physically otherwise.
My vet and others have suggested just a bit of bad luck, bad season for kidding, the change in environment because of moving from the Northeast to the Southeast last year. Well we are hopiong that is all that it is but from going to Zero deaths in 3 years to six death in 1 year something has to be going on IMO. And now to have them coming out deformed is just down right scares the heck out of us. And is just to much for my daughters to have to experience. This just down right SUCKS!
I am going to enclose a picture of both kids after I downsize them and I will place them in the picture section of this forum...
Thanks again everyone, I am taking in any suggestions, comments, and opinions anyone has. I need answers, oh do I need answers if I am to continue this. I have all my does due for Spring kids and I am scared to death of want might happen with them. If it is something that can be stopped now, the sooner the better. We are trying everything we can think of right now and taking all the help we can get. I do hope this was just a bad spell of luck we had!!!
Thanks,
Tina

 

[sweetgoats]

Tina,
My heart just aches for you. I am so sorry about all that you have done threw. What kind of grain are you feeding? Do they have enough calcium? I am just trying to think of anything. I want to thinks about this and I will talk to some friends and see what they say.
God Bless you and the family. Hugs to you all.

 

[mystic's_mom]

Toxoplasmosis perhaps? I know it usually causes abortions, but it can cause still births too... I think you have to test the necroptic fluids to rule Toxo out...

 

[enjoytheride]

I hope that your necropsy gives you the answers you need.
It is completely understandable that the joy has left in doing this after so many problems. I'm so sorry- I hope that everything else goes right for you.

 

[debpnigerians]

Tina, my first kidding season was disasterous....I lost more kids than I saved, and absolutely no idea what happened. The kids were fully formed and alive in the womb, but evidently too weak to survive the trauma of delivery. Sometimes we never find out why, and you're right, it sucks. Big time. But one of the only hard and fast rules of owning any kind of livestock is that if you have livestock you are going to have dead stock. I'm terribly sorry that this has happened to your herd and your family; believe me I DO know how much it hurts. But I do wish you wouldn't give up quite yet. This has been a rough year for almost everyone I know, and I strongly suspect though can't prove that the kidding problems so many of us have experianced this year may be nutritional. Almost every area of the country that produces hay and grain has been hit by severe droughts in the past few years, and no one will ever convince me that it hasn't effected the nutritional balance of our feeds. Many of us have been getting hay/feed grown in areas far from where we normally get our feed, and perhaps we didn't realize that while I don't live in a selenium-deficent area, the hay my feed store trucked in was grown in a deficent region. It could be something that simple that caused the deformities. Have you talked to other goat breeders in your area? Go to the NDGA, AGS and ADGA lists and post about this to them, see if anyone can come up with any ideas. There are breeders who have been breeding for over 50 years on those lists, ask their help. I'd even call Anne Hoegger at Hoegger Goat Supply and talk to her. PM me - I have e-mail addys for people who know as much about goats as anyone on the planet. I'd hate to see you give up because of a run of hard, painful luck that was already over, or fixable. I know how bad it hurts - I've been there. But it doesn't stay bad forever, and when it gets better it's wonderful.

 

[Laurel_Haven]

Thanks for all your thoughts, stories and kind words, I have found them to be very helpful. We are not throwing in the towel just yet, we do have most all of our girls bred for Spring kids. I am just praying it is a better year.
I just wanted to update you that I did get the necroscopy back on the buck that was born deformed and it showed nothing that could really be linked to as the cause. Of course it did show some intestinal abnormalities but we expected that with being born with no "anus" it is actually called atresia ani and is usually a genetic disorder. All chemical compounds and mineral levels were within range. Nothing out of the ordinary to put up a red flag. The cause of death was the euthanization drug and starvation. Which we already knew. So we are really no closer to finding an answer if there even is one to find. None of the deaths can be linked together in anyway. We are back to good ole "BAD LUCK".
I do agree that it could be something nutritional, as we have had a drastic change in hay quality since leaving PA. Back in PA we were spoiled by rich green hay, and here in SC the hay looks more like straw. We have even resorted to having it shipped down from NY by the truck loads this past month because we have not found anything we are happy with. It has been a dry year down here, worst in over 25 years they are saying. And our normal grain we supplied back to them up North is not available down here so we have changed that also. So that could be a link I guess.
Anyway we are working hard to overcome our losses and trying everything we can to prevent it from happening again. Of course we will lose a goat on occasion but hopefully; our bad year is now behind us and the does system has had a chance to adjust to the environmental changes of North to South.
Well see come this Spring! BTW the one lone buckling (wether to be) is thriving and quite full of life!

 

[alyssa_romine]

It is good that the little buckling is doing so well!!! I hope your year gets better. I had a bad year last year also and thought about selling off all of my goats but my husband told me that I couldn't. He gave me courage and told me I couldn't give up. I am sure it will get better as mine did. Let's just hope and pray for the best!!!