Occasionally a kid just had a rough delivery, has a slight deformity like contracted tendons that keep it from standing right away, or is slightly underdeveloped and lacking a strong sucking response. While this newborn goat kid can’t stand and may appear “floppy,” it does not have floppy kid syndrome, which doesn’t present until three to 10 days after birth.
Possible solution
– You may need to help the kid get to its feet by propping it up and holding it to its mother’s teat for the first few sucks.
– You may need to express some of the mother’s colostrum into a bottle with a Pritchard nipple and feed a few ounces to the baby.
– You can try dripping or rubbing some colostrum, vitamin solution, corn syrup, or even coffee on its tongue and gums to help give it a little energy boost.
– A weak baby goat may benefit from a thiamine injection.
– If all else fails, or the baby goat won’t eat, you or your veterinarian may need to administer the initial colostrum through a stomach tube.
Hypothermia
If a baby is born on a very cold or wet day or night, or if the kid is under-developed and having a hard time regulating its body temperature, hypothermia can set in quickly. An otherwise healthy kid whose body temperature drops too low will be unable to eat or even absorb nutrients until its body returns to a normal body temperature range. Before trying to feed a cold and lethargic goat kid, you will need to warm it up sufficiently.
Possible Solution
– The first thing to try is to dry the kid off and hold it close to your body. This will at least minimize heat loss and, for a slightly chilled kid, may raise the body temperature enough to get it to start eating.
– If a weak baby goat is very cold, a quick way to bring up body temperature is by submerging it in a hot water bath. If the kid is still wet, you can plunge it in a bucket of very warm water, holding its head above the water, of course, and then dry it off once warmed. If the baby is already dried off but still very cold, you may want to place the body, up to the neck, in a large plastic bag and then submerge it into the bucket of very warm water, so the baby stays dry. This acts as a hot tub and can restore a baby goat temperature quite quickly.
– Another method to bring body temperature up is to place the baby in a box and use a hairdryer to warm the box quickly. A semi-airtight container such as a plastic tub with a hole cut into one side to stick the hairdryer through works well. You don’t want the hot air blowing directly on the goat, so make sure the hole is near the top of the tub.
– Heat lamps and heating pads will also help warm a baby, but these both take longer to raise body temperature and are more of a help in keeping a baby warm once you’ve raised a frigid body temperature back up to normal. They are both potentially dangerous fire hazards, and there is a risk of overheating or even burning baby or other goats in the area, so use with extreme caution.
– Once the baby’s body temperature returns to normal, you can try feeding through one of the methods suggested above.
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