Late last fall we decided to re-try our hand at raising some goats. We bought a fine Nubian-Saanen cross, named Pesch, from farmers we know in Cortland County. She had been bred and expected to deliver in March.
Well, deliver she did…and along came kid number 1.
(Land mammals clean off their new babies by licking them off, so Mama is doing a good job here with her newborn.)
And then along came kid number 2.
(Baby 1 has its head up, which is a good sign. Within a couple of minutes she will be trying to stand up, although her legs will be too wobbly to support her.)
And the out popped kid number 3.
(Kid 3 was 15 – 20 minutes after Kid 1, so the first little lady is already trying to figure out how to eat.)
All was going well with our three little kids. And then we tried to follow good veterinary practice and gave them a booster shot of selenium and Vitamin E. Unfortunately, we got our dosage wrong and thus we arrive at our iatrogenic issue. Two of the kids reacted to the overdose and ended up dying.
It was a sad re-introduction to raising goats, but we are glad that we have one little guy (the kids call him Ralph) that jumps around the pen playing with Mama.
