How to Correct a Nubian Goat Kid’s Folded Ears
Nubian kids are sometimes born with folded ears. If you don’t correct a goat kid’s folded ears right away, the ears will remain permanently folded.
Why goat kids are born with folded ears is anyone’s guess. One conjecture is that it occurs due to pressure against the head in the womb. Another guess is that it’s genetic, as it seems to be more common in older Nubian bloodlines.
Folded ears don’t look right. And a goat with folded ears is not suitable for the show ring. Aside from aesthetics, folded ears may interfere with a goat’s hearing ability.
To a limited extent, a goat can lift its ears away from its head, as well as turn the ears slightly toward the front or back to channel sound into the ear canal, such as you might cup your hand behind an ear to hear better. A folded ear doesn’t capture sound nearly as well as a flat ear.
To correct a goat kid’s folded ears, cut four splints from light cardboard, making them roughly the size and shape of a kid’s ear. You will need two splints for each ear.
We keep several precut splints with our kidding supplies, along with tape to apply them to the ears. We use electrical tape, because we always have it on hand. But surgical tape or vet wrap would also work. Since the tape does (or at least shouldn’t) touch the ears themselves, it’s easy to remove.
If, soon after the kid is dried off, the ears are hanging with a fold vertically down the middle, they need to be straightened. Flatten each ear and sandwich it between two splints, with narrow ends upward so the splints can’t slide off the ear. Tape the splints firmly together.
After 3 or 4 days, remove the splints by splitting the tape at the edge of the cardboard. If the ears still don’t hang right, reapply the splints. For this second round, you may need slightly larger splints.
When we first started keeping Nubians, some decades ago, we were paranoid about folded ears and taped the ears of nearly every kid that was born on our farm. Now we keep a wary eye on the kids’ ears, and if they don’t hang straight down within a couple of hours of birth, we get out the splints.
