Wisp, the golden-haired Royal Golden Guernsey goat, gave birth to a perfect little billy goat at 4 am on Wednesday morning.

When we first bought Willow and her half sister Wisp the vendor told us that Willow might be pregnant and indeed she was (for more about this read “Jews Milk Goats” – still selling well on Amazon two and half years after first publication). The following year after Willow had raised her twins, we took Willow and Wisp to a local Royal Golden Guernsey breeder who owned a stud billy.  Willow fell pregnant straight away but Wisp did not, nor did she on a second visit.

The following year we bought in a young buck called Billy and that year Wisp and Willow and Willow’s fully grown daughter, Ruth, became pregnant.
Willow and Ruth gave birth with ease and produced lovely kids within days of each other. 
Wisp went into labour a couple of weeks later and she struggled to give birth. She was tired and then became quite exhausted. We sat with her for some hours and then realized that we had to help with delivery and between the three of us – two humans and one goat, Baby was delivered safely (or so we thought). We had more to learn.
We already knew that Wisp ( who had developed an abscess on her udder during the pregnancy) would be unable to feed her kid. We had bottles at the ready and goat replacer powder.

All was going well and Wisp and Baby were happily bonded. Then Baby developed a limp.
At first I thought that boisterous play with the older kids, born to Willow and Ruth, had caused a minor injury. It got worse. I called the vet and when he examined her the diagnosis was septic arthritis.
Our fault. In our ignorance we hadn’t known to sterilise Baby’s umbilicus after her drawn out birth and arrival on a less than perfectly clean bed of straw
The treatment was daily anti-inflammatory and antibiotic injections. The chances of recovery were slim and if she was crippled in her joints then the only relief would be euthanasia.

Against all the odds Baby recovered and grew into a beautiful young nanny goat.  Tragedy struck again at the age of 9 months when Baby had a bizarre accident.

In the paddock Baby got her horns entangled in a climbing rope attached to the children’s play apparatus and when we went to feed the goats we found her hanging – perfect, still warm, eyes open but lifeless.
I cut her down hoping she might still be revived and gave her mouth to mouth.  It was too late. I grieve to this day.

This year, with the arrival of billy goat Rickyard Juno, all the girls fell pregnant and Wisp was the first to go into labour on Tuesday night.

We checked on her all evening and at midnight we fetched a wheelbarrow, filled it with a bale of clean straw and covered the goat shed floor with the bedding material.  We had a small bottle of iodine and a cloth nearby so that we could sterilise the umbilical cords of any kids.
At 4 am I awoke from 2 hours of a fitful sleep and walked across the paddock to the goat shed. Wisp was standing and straining and a sack enclosing two legs was protruding from her behind. I ran to fetch Jeremy feeling sure that, once again, we would be required to be midwives to a goat. 

By the time we reached the goat shed, our way lit with a less than reliable torch, a baby goat was lying on the straw and Wisp was licking it vigorously.  I fetched a towel to help the process and also got out a packet of artificial colostrum, a clean lamb bottle, a mixing jug and fork and a container of Milton steriliser.  Once the kid had been sufficiently licked and dried it would be time to feed the all important colostrum. Before that could begin we took the bottle of iodine and a clean cloth and bathed the baby’s umbilicus to prevent a repeat of the septic infection from which Wisp’s first offspring had suffered.

By 6 am I was bottle feeding the little billy goat and he took to the rubber teat straight away.  Wisp looked on and every now and again, tried to intervene and push her baby under her own milkless udder.  

All was well and, after feeding, the kid bedded down on the fresh straw and slept next to his mother.  

If there is a twin, I googled, it will appear within 15 minutes and thereafter or if there is no other baby the afterbirth will be expelled within 12 hours.

Come the afternoon the baby billy goat was trying to stand and feeding nicely.  Wisp had not yet got rid of the afterbirth and I began to be a tad concerned.  As usual I worry and Jeremy thinks that all will be well.  He is more often correct than me but, sadly, sometimes I am proved right.

By this morning Wisp had not eaten her bowl of concentrates and was continuing to strain as if she was trying to push out the residue.  Other than some stringy bloody thin rope-like structure (the remains of the umbilical cord) from her rear end there was no sign of the afterbirth. 

I telephoned the vet at 8 am and spoke to the duty officer.  She told me not to worry and that it was too late for an oxytocin injection to help the goat to push out the placenta.  That would have had to be administered within a 12 hour window after the birth.   She asked if I could tie a knot in the bloody hanging thread to give it some more weight which would help to bring out what should be outside and not inside the goat. I wasn’t keen but I was prepared to try anything.  

By midday Wisp was neither eating nor drinking, although her kid was sucking and sleeping well.  Wisp was also straining every few minutes.  I called the vet again and this time she sprang into action and decided that a visit was required.

By 3 pm she and two newly qualified colleagues arrived in a car full of implements, medicines and plenty of plastic sacks.

We had put Wisp and her baby in the goat shed which, unusually both Willow and Ruth had vacated when Wisp went into labour and had refused to re-enter since Tuesday evening. Were they giving Wisp some privacy or did they have a premonition of what was to follow?

 

The newly qualified vets took Wisp’s temperature.  It was too high.  They listened to her heart.  It was beating too fast.  Then one of them put on long plastic gloves and spread lubrication over her gloved hand and inserted it into Wisp.  After a few minutes (poor Wisp was moaning just as she had when she was in labour) she felt a tail and then a foot.  There was another kid inside Wisp which would undoubtably be dead and bloating.  The smell was less than pleasant, the goat was in pain and an epidural was given.  The plucky young woman worked her way inside with her gloved and bloody arm and attached two ropes to the two legs that she had located and began to pull.  I went outside and sat with the baby goat who was, by then, asleep on a pile of straw next to the milking parlour.

Eventually Jeremy called me over and the senior vet pronounced that, of course, the dead goat was a girl.  I was so relieved that she was out but Wisp was not in great shape.  I was asked for a towel and a bucket of water and the wet towel was placed on Wisp’s now shaven back in an attempt to bring down her temperature.  Various injections were given, calcium and antibiotics and maybe others.  A drip was attached via a neck catheter to hydrate Wisp and quite rapidly her temperature came down.  

The three vets stood Wisp on her feet and she walked to her water bucket and began, remarkably to drink the cool fresh water.  

Whilst this was going on Jeremy had gone over to the sheep barn to prepare a clean stable for Wisp and her kid.  But would we be able to get her all the way across the paddock and part of the adjoining field into the barn?

Little by little, using the kid as an incentive in front of his mother, we semi pulled, lifted, cajoled and encouraged Wisp into her new home.  She stopped several times to eat the tempting grass in the barn field and then followed Jeremy when he picked some swiss chard from the garden and placed it in front of her nose.  

Finally we were there and the vets arrived with their thermometer to discover that Wisp’s temperature had dropped to a normal level.  Quite amazing.

Before they left us I was shown how to administer antibiotic injections for the subsequent two days.  

I also asked the senior vet to find out about sterilising Wisp.  I wam adamant that she must never go through another pregnancy and delivery.  I want her to live out her days in peace and contentment as a much loved member of The Gables collective.  

I’ll keep you posted.  Wish us all luck for the next few days.

We still have a poorly goat, a kid to bottle feed and Willow and Ruth due to give birth any day now.  The vets left me with some long plastic gloves.  I sincerely hope that I will not have to use them!