Gain Confidence in Your Goats and Yourself

“Thanks to this course, I knew exactly when my ladies were approaching labor. I felt confident in knowing where they were at in the process, what to expect next, and I had everything I needed to handle the situation, regardless of the course they took. Thankfully, we now have 3 healthy and happy kids who are being raised by their healthy and happy moms! I will continue to reference this material for years to come!”
Trudy Cape – Georgia

Have you ever spent hours — or days and nights — in a cold barn because you thought your doe was in labor?

How many times have you wondered, “Is that normal?”

How much sleep have you lost when goats were due to kid because you kept running out to the barn to check on them?

My answers to these questions have changed dramatically since 2002 when we bought our first goats.

The most frustrating part of “the early years” was spending a couple of days with a doe and then having her kid 15 minutes after I went into the house to eat lunch!

But it doesn’t have to be that way. And you don’t have to wait 10 or 15 years to get the experience to know when your doe is close to giving birth or that things are progressing normally.

New and aspiring goat owners often tell me that they wish they could spend a couple of weeks with an experienced goat breeder during kidding season. They are worried that they won’t know what’s normal or when a doe needs help.

Although we’ve been offering internships during kidding season for many years, I realize most people don’t have the time to come to our farm for a couple of weeks. That’s why I created this online course. It includes all of the information that I give students in our on-farm classes about goat birthing and getting started with kids. Plus, it includes extended videos of 25+ kids that were born on our farm — from labor and birth through nursing, bottle-feeding, disbudding, castrating, tattooing and more.

The birthing videos are minimally edited and heavily narrated. You’ll see the good, the bad, the boring, and the ugly.

• We’ll start with checking on does who are due. You’ll follow me as I check udders and tail ligaments and look at bellies and debate when to move a doe to a kidding pen.
• You’ll be there during early labor and hear how I decide whether to head back into the house or stay in the barn longer.
• You’ll see normal labors and abnormal labors, as well as normal labors that are different — and would make most newbies really worried!
• You’ll see does pushing out kids. I’ll talk about what’s normal and why I’m just sitting and waiting.
• I’ll also let you know when I’m starting to get worried.
• If I do something, I’ll explain the pros and cons, along with what I’m doing and why.
• You’ll see normal and abnormal placentas and learn what they mean.

Once the kids are born, you’ll see how quickly (or slowly) they get to their feet and start nursing.

• If they don’t start nursing in a timely manner, you’ll learn what to do.
• When a kid gets hypothermia, you’ll see how I get them warmed up and how I get colostrum into them with syringe-feeding or bottle-feeding.
• If a doe has too many kids to feed or if a kid has problems at birth that make it harder to get started nursing, you’ll see how to start bottle feeding, as well as the way that bottle-feeding changes in the early weeks.
• You’ll learn about normal newborn poop, newborn hooves, and umbilical cords.
• You’ll see us weighing kids to determine if they’re gaining weight at an acceptable rate.
• You’ll see a dehydrated kid that had hypoglycemia and how it was tube-fed.
• You can watch us disbud five kids so you get several perspectives.
• You’ll also see several castrations with a Burdizzo and a Side Crusher.
• Another video shows us tattooing several kids.
• One video is devoted to figuring out which kids are polled and which are horned over the course of several days. We even let the horns grow on four of the kids so you can see how fast the horns grow.

Basically you’ll get to see just about everything that happens from the end of pregnancy throughout the first two months of a kid’s life.

Your Instructor

Deborah Niemann

In 2002, Deborah and her family moved to 32 acres on a creek in the middle of nowhere to grow their own food organically. With the help of goats, sheep, pigs, and poultry, they produce 100% of their meat, eggs, and dairy products, as well as a large percentage of their vegetables, fruit, and herbs. They sold chickens and turkeys for more than 10 years, and are currently a licensed egg producer in Illinois and sell eggs to a grocery store and through a CSA.

Deborah is the author of six books, including Homegrown and Handmade, Ecothrifty, and Raising Goats Naturally, as well as her latest book, Goats Giving Birth. She also teaches sustainable agriculture courses online for the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. She has been teaching Raising Dairy Goats Sustainably since 2013 and Pastured Poultry since 2015.

In 2022, Deborah got certified as a FAMACHA instructor so that she and her students could feel confident that she was providing the most up-to-date information on parasite research and management.

Course Curriculum

Getting ed

• Welcome!
• Just Kidding eBook
• Record Keeping

Getting Ready for Kidding and Kids

• Pregnancy (26:53)
• Nutrition
• Comparison of Goat Minerals
• Kidding Barn Tour (6:29)
• Kidding Supplies (13:27)
• Preview

  Checking Udders and Tail Ligaments (9:52)

• Moving Goats to the Kidding Barn (5:11)
• Is your goat overdue? (5:59)
• Shaving a Doe’s Udder?

Labor, Birth, and Postpartum

• Birthing (23:27)
• Abortion and Stillbirth (20:40)
• After the Birth (14:02)
• Postpartum: Talkative Mama (2:31)
• Placenta Photos
• Doe eating placenta (2:09)
• Retained Placenta (7:44)
• Normal postpartum discharge

 

Frances’s Birth Videos

• Frances 1: Labor (10:56)
• Frances 2: Birth (twins – one breech) (11:49)
• Frances 3: Kids (4:35)

Cicada’s Birth Videos

• Cicada 1: Birth (single kid, 10-year-old mom) (4:41)
• Cicada 2: Kid Learning to Nurse (9:49)

Agnes’s Birth Videos

• Agnes 1: Labor (7:59)
• Agnes 2: Birth (Kids 1 to 3) (12:46)
• Agnes 3: Birth (another perspective of birth #3) (1:40)
• Agnes 4: Kid 4 (0:51)
• Agnes 5: Placenta (4:18)

Vera’s Birth Videos

• Vera 1: Kids 1 and 2 (11:08)
• Vera 2: Kids 3 and 4 (includes mummified kid) (8:12)
• Vera 3: Kid 5 or done? (6:43)
• Vera 4: Kids Nursing (or not) (3:49)
• Vera 5: Abnormal Placenta (1:26)
• Vera 6: Mummified Kid (2:08)

Lady’s Birth Videos

• Twin birth with minor assistance (12:16)
• Is there a third kid? (1:12)

Blanche’s Birth Videos

• Labor 1 (long first stage of labor) (11:22)
• Labor 2 (calcium drench) (8:27)
• Birth 1 (first kid) (7:59)
• Birth 2 (second and third kids) (10:00)
• Birth 3 (fourth kid) (6:11)

Ellie’s birth

• Complicated Birth 1 (10:42)
• Complicated Births 2, 3, 4 (11:59)
• Abnormal Placenta (1:17)

Ellie’s third kidding (quintuplets without assistance!)

• Labor (7:32)
• First kid (using a bulb syringe) (4:30)
• Second kid (8:30)
• Third and fourth kids (3:31)
• FIFTH kid! (7:03)

Victoria’s birth — C-section, schistosomus, mummified kids

• Read this FIRST before other lessons in this section!
• Live Training: Discussion of Victoria’s Pregnancy, Labor, C-section, and Kids (74:58)
• Discussion of Schistosomus Reflexus (deformed kid) (7:37)
• First mummified kid delivery (1:53)

Newborn Complications

• Hypothermia (5:23)
• Dehydration (7:08)
• Hypoglycemia (2:33)
• Tube Feeding (9:18)
• When Everything You Can Do Is Not Enough (11:47)
• Removing Liver and Lungs from a Newborn (6:11)

Feeding Kids

• Pritchard Teats (13:33)
• Bottle-Feeding 1: Agnes Doeling at birth (4:51)
• Bottle-Feeding 2: Agnes Doeling at 1 day old (5:38)
• Bottle-Feeding 3: Vera Doeling at 5 hours (6:21)
• Syringe Feeding: Agnes Buckling (4:31)
• Bottle-Feeding Cheat Sheet (printable)
• Monitoring Kids’ Weight Gain (23:22)
• Normal Nursing Behavior

Raising Kids

• Newborn Poop (Agnes Doeling) (1:49)
• Newborn Hooves and Umbilical Cord (Lady’s Buck) (3:58)
• Castration, IDs, and Barn Hygiene (10:38)
• Castrating Bucklings with a Burdizzo (7:32)
• Castrating Bucklings with a Side Crusher (Premier1) (3:51)
• Burdizzo Castration After One Year
• Side Crusher castration after two weeks and two months
• Burdizzo vs Side Crusher Discussion (24:12)
• How to Tattoo Kids (3:18)

Horns, Polled Goats, Disbudding

• All About Horns (24:00)
• Preview

  Are these kids polled or horned? (10:14)

• Disbudding 1 — includes Step-by-Step Guide to Disbudding (5:29)
• Disbudding 2 (5:10)
• Disbudding 3 (4:47)
• Disbudding 4 (5:25)
• Disbudding a Buck (5:01)

BONUS: Milking and Milk Handling

• Raising Goats Naturally — Chapter 12 — Milking
• When and How to Milking a Doe (28:31)

Zoom Q&A Meetings

• January 31, 2022, 8 p.m. central (24:24)
• Jan. 27, 2022, 8 p.m. central (93:30)
• Feb. 4, 2021 @ 8 p.m. (113:49)
• Jan. 27, 2021 @ 11 a.m. (134:33)
• Jan. 21, 2021 @ 8 p.m. (95:20)
• Jan. 13, 2021 @ 11 a.m. (97:56)

What’s next?

• Course Feedback Survey

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Proof Content

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