  Totally not fun! I hate dealing with retained afterbirths. We had just dealt with a very difficult kidding on this doe. Her tail tendons had been gone all day and she had not yet kidded. She wasn't impatient, but by the time darkness fell I knew I was going to have to glove up and find out why. I had already given her one dose of Ewe-Ter-N tea to help us with more efficient contractions which she drank readily a few hours ago. So I drenched her with a second dose. Then after we milked does and fed kids Jerry and I went to work. My husband has the very important job of holding the does and talking to them while I do the fishing to find out why the goat stork had not arrived. So after lubing up with 3 drops of lavender essential oil (see our website to purchase) mixed into some olive oil, I found that I had a cervix only somewhat dilated so I applied firm but not too hard of pressure with my fingers in an outward circle position and it began to dilate further. It probably took about three minutes to get full dilation so that I could feel what I had going on. And just what?!? was going on? So I felt a bony 'corner' then I felt a spine, then I found a tail. Oh rats. rump first. Not even any rear legs to go with it. To top it off there was a kid just to the right with one front leg and a nose, but as I was feeling around I felt an eye socket that felt ldeeper than normal. hmmmm. So I opt to slowly, carefully slide my hand down the uterus under the rump of the kid that was just a bit closer to me. Carefully keeping my hand along the underneath of the kid I find one leg. So then I carefully had to simultaneously try to move the rump further into the doe while I cupped my hand around the foot and took some time to first curl the foot around, then get enough room to slowly bring the foot up without compromising or breaking the fetlock joint (pastern). Yes, it was tight in there. My cupped hand protected the doe's uterus from being torn as I brought the leg up and through the vulva. Now I had one rear leg and a rump. Not ideal, but better than no rear legs to pull. This kid was somewhat dry (not a good sign) so I filled up a 50 ml cc feeding syringe (available on our website- always keep one in your kidding kit!) with olive oil and five drops of lavender essential oil (standard sized lamancha doe) and carefully inserted it into the vaginal canal between the kid and wall and squirted it up into the canal. Nicely lubed- yes! Be very careful if you have to do this with a forward facing kid- try to get the lubricant back behind the head so you don't aspirate your kid. After some working I was able to get the kid out. Dead kid- at least for several hours by looking at the eyes- which explained the deeper than normal eye sockets. So this was the SAME kid that I thought was two- in a u shape with his rump and head trying to get out at the same time. First time for everything and hope I don't see another one of those! With him clear the second kid- a doeling came out just fine and normal. Then the third kid came out rear feet first but in goats that is normal. I just help the doe with these by pulling downward towards HER hocks so we can get to the face fast to strip it with a soft absorbable cotton washcloth before it tries to breathe. So thankfully two nice and healthy strong doelings. Because of the work to get that first dystocia (malpresentation) this doe's vulva was quite mishapen. And because I had to dig in and out of her I loaded up the drenching syringe with HerBiotic herb mix (on our website) and olive oil and drenched that into her vaginal canal with a hard push on the plunger to send the mix as far up as possible. I wanted that up there since I had been past the cervix even though I sanitized my glove I still most certainly introduced bacteria into her uterus- remember it's airborn in a barn and sticking to your glove and any thing else wet immediately. I also put HerBiotic salve on the very damaged vulval lips. First photo shows the damage to the vulva and retained afterbirth. Second photo shows how much salve I put on and third shows her just 24 hours later. We do blanket our does after they kid until the next morning when we put them back with the herd after milking- unless there is a problem. With a very difficult birth a retained placenta isn't all that uncommon and I also hate these. The whole time you have afterbirth hanging their bacteria are climbing up the afterbirth and marching into the vulva and uterus. With these we typically tie about a one pound weight to the top of the afterbirth- being careful not to break it and being careful to never tie any of the vulval lips into the hayrope. I like hay rope best because it's stiff for easy tying/untying, easy to sanitize and we never have a shortage of it! I also tie up any extra placenta into a not to add to the weight and gave another dose of Ewe-Ter-N herb mix. Every couple hours I untied and retied the block back up at the top as the placenta slowly worked it's way out of the doe. This placenta held on for nearly a day- very long for us and I don't like the doe having to deal with it that long. But we can't pull the placenta out or we risk damaging the future fertility of the doe. I will always check the afterbirth with a firm but gentle and slow downward pulling action to see if it will just let go and come out before I add weight. You never want to tear it or force it out. I'm continuing to give this doe oral and intravaginal HerBiotic to help her deal with any bacterial issues that could turn into bad infections. I'll do this for a week to ten days based on my observations on any potential discharge and her attitude (which so far is great). Milk wise and appetite wise this doe hasn't missed a beat! All products can be found at www.firmeadowllc.com So just some thoughts and hopefully these will help you out! hankfully this has been our only hard birth this year to this point. We still have a few does spread out over the next few weeks for kidding. Be Blessed with happy healthy kids and does!!!  |
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