Kid in Crisis

I had just talked to an out of town friend who asked how the goats were doing and I said they were all good when Konrad called me from the barn.

He said that one of the triplets was dying and did I want to come down and look at her. I said no, but asked for her symptoms and went to the internet. Konrad said she had a stiff neck. I diagnosed this as tetanus but I called our Extension Agent to see what she thought and she also thought tetanus with the description. The is almost always fatal in goats. She suggested I call the vet to see what he thought so I got the number and headed down to the barn. I want to point out here that I was in my red moose pajamas, but I threw on my coveralls before heading to the barn.

She was laying on her side all sprawled out, legs fully extended and head tilted waaaaay back, like laying on her back. Her eyes were open and she was breathing. The vet had said I could bring her in. Konrad and I decided that though we were sure she would die we would pay for a $30 vet exam to determine what killed her in case it was contagious.

I had picked her up as soon as I got to the barn and wrapped her in a towel. With goat in my arms I walked back up to the house, grabbed a real shirt, my purse and keys and left. I turned on the heat and put her in the passenger seat so I could change my shirt as I drove.

The vet looked her over and took her glucose which didn't register on his machine bc it was so low. He took her temperature and it didn't register either because it was so low. So he put her on a heating pad and started a line in her neck (including 2 stitches to hold it in place with no anesthesia and she barely winced) and put in warm saline and glucose. Then we waited. Then he tubed her down her throat and gave her more glucose. Then we waited. After about an hour he got a temp of 90-normal is 100-102, but her eyes had started to twitch and he said that is sign of brain damage! Eventually he moved me to the surgery room where I just sat and held her and the heating pad all wrapped up in blankets for a long while. He checked on her a few more times as her temperature went up, the eye twitching was getting a little better.

Her temp went up to 95 and he sent me home with instructions to be her mama for a few days, keep her in the house on a heating pad and feed her every couple of hours. He said I could either milk Kay (her real mama) or if she seemed up to it I could let her nurse.

We didn't have a heating pad so I went to Walgreen's....in my coveralls...with no makeup...poop on my shoes...and a towel-wrapped baby goat in my arms. All the heating pads shut off every two hours (who knew you couldn't buy one without auto shut off?) but I bought one anyway.

I took her straight to the barn to collect milk. Konrad came down. He was *supposed* to be sleeping so I was surprised to see him. He suggested I let her nurse. I really didn't think she would but he went and got her out of the passenger seat and sure enough she went right to nursing, aggressively.

So though we didn't intend on using any *heroic measures* to save her, I'm glad she is alive and as I was leaving the vet said she would probably make it. So at this time our plan is to take her to the barn every few hours to nurse, which means removing the other two kids and putting Kay in a headlock so she will stand still and quit worrying about her loud mouth kids on the other side of the barn.

Any volunteers for the 4am feeding??

This is a picture of Little Bit in the bucket in the living room with her heating pad, and my bed for the night on the couch.