Mandie!!!!

Good morning folks! I wrote this last night but was exhaused so I didn't make it through. Enjoy...and learn! :)

This morning when I woke up Mandie seemed to be going into labor. I kept an eye on her all morning and around 9:00 I noticed her starting to push though they were wimpy little pushes. However, as the day went on there was no progress and she wasn't dilating at all. Around noon we decided she had been going long enough and call the vet since she still hadn't dilated at all. The vet said to just try to get in there and open her up ourselves so I pulled on a glove and started in. I slowly was able to "open" her up and broke the water. The first kid was positioned with one leg forward with the head in the normal position but with the other leg back.
I was able to pull it out without too much hassle. It was a beautiful black doe! The second kid was coming head first, 1 leg back, 1 knee forward (the leg had been folded back) so that was a little harder to pull out. Meanwhile, because of the long wait in the birth canal the first kid wasn't doing too well. I got the second one out (also a black doe!!) and handed her over to Abigail while Dad and I worked on the first kid. She had a lot of fluid in her lungs and was really weak. Dad tried CPR and we tried swinging her but sadly, she didn't make it. Abigail had brought the other doe kid inside and when we came in she wasn't looking good either. She was really weak and already quite hypothermic (down to 94* - regular body temp is 101*-104*). Dad did CPR on her which got her breathing a bit steadier and were getting ready to tube feed her but thankfully called the vet first. He said to make sure we got her body temp up first or the milk would curdle in her stomach and it would kill her. He said to put her in warm water so we filled up our sink and laid her in. We took our out of the water and dried her off a total of 3 times. :) It was quite an experience.
When we finally got her body temp up to normal we tube fed her and I wrapped her up in one of our warmest blankets.
She and I sat for almost 2 hours relaxing while the rest of the family went outside to tap maple trees. By the time they got back inside she was already trying to stand up.
At supper time she was up and ready to drink a bottle!
We are so thankful that we have a healthy baby, healthy momma (Mandie is doing great!) and that we have an awesome goat vet!!!!

We learned a lot of little lessons today.
#1. Don't let the doe push any longer than 1 hour even if she isn't dialating.
#2. You can bring up a kids body temp by putting it in warm water!
#3. Don't forget about hypothermia. Kids can easily be effected if weak at birth.
#4. Don't tube feed if their body temp is low.
#5. Have a good vet that you can call even if he/she isn't at the office. (He wasn't in today but we were still able to get a hold of him)
#6. Don't give up on a weak kid! Fight for it's life!!!!
Hope you can learn all this the easy way.....by remembering this! :)

'Till next time,
~Bethany~