Get Ready for Goat Kidding Season
For most dairy goat breeds, kidding season generally starts in November and runs through April. In the warm southern states, the season runs a little later — from about December through May. So most goat owners know when to get ready for goat kidding season.
That is, unless (like me) you keep Nubians. A review of my past kidding records reveals that, over the years, one or another of my does has kidded in every month. Still, in most years the kids arrive from late winter to early spring. Which is great, because the kids are less likely to get coccidiosis or other diseases that are more prevalent during warm, humid weather. Here’s how we prepare for kidding.
Dry Off the Doe
If the doe is being milked, we stop milking her two months before she is due to give birth, so her body can take a rest. At our farm, we are less interested in having more kids than in getting milk for making yogurt and ice cream. So we typically continue milking our does as long as they continue producing milk. Therefore we generally breed a doe and dry her off only after a her milk production starts slacking off. Or sometimes we have too many does producing at once, giving us more milk than we can use.
Shots for the Doe
Thirty days before the doe is due to kid, she gets two shots. One is an intramuscular vitamin A, D, and E shot at the rate of 1 cc per 100 pounds, as estimated using a weight tape. This shot is probably not necessary here in Tennessee, where our goats can graze fresh forage year around. But we give it anyway, as winter grazing can be limited by rainy weather or snow covered pastures.
The second shot is subcutaneous BoSe (Bovine Selenium) at the rate of 2.5cc per 100 pounds. This shot is to ensure the doe is not selenium deficient. Deficiency can cause her kids to be born with white muscle disease, also known as nutritional muscular dystrophy.
A selenium shot is not necessary, and may even be detrimental, where the soil tends to be high in selenium — North and South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado. However, selenium tends to be low in areas of the Northeast, the Southern Atlantic Seaboard, and the Pacific Northwest. Since, early in our goat keeping venture, we frequently had kids with white muscle disease, we now routinely give each doe a Bo-Se shot.
Prepare Kidding Stall
In addition to the main stall in our barn, we have a smaller kidding stall, where does can kid without interference from the rest of the herd. Before a doe gives birth, we make sure the stall has been cleaned out and bedded with fresh straw. We prefer straw to shavings, because it doesn’t as readily stick to wet newborns.
We also check the floodlights to make sure none has burned out or got covered with cobwebs. Having plenty of light helps us see what’s going on while the doe is in labor.
Check Kidding Supplies
Finally, we make sure our kidding supplies are in order. We used to gather an enormous number of just-in-case items, but since our does rarely have kidding problems, we pared the list down to essentials: plenty of large, clean towels to dry the newborns; povidone iodine for dipping the kids’ navals; and Bo-Se (0.5 cc per kid, subcutaneous) as an additional guard against white muscle disease.
Also essential is a notebook and pen, so we can write down the date of kidding, each kid’s name and distinguishing marks, and weight at birth. For the first week or so, we record each kid’s weight every day, to make sure they are all nursing properly and gaining ground.
Wait and See
Our does love to kid in the middle of the coldest night of the year, so as I get ready for goat kidding I keep a pair of cozy sweats by the bed that I can jump into in a hurry. From then on, it’s just a matter of waiting with great anticipation to find out exactly when (day and time) the doe will kid, how many kids she’ll have, and whether they’ll be or doelings or bucklings, or some of each.
