Feeding Newborn Kids
Depending on the intensification of the operation and the need to implement various disease control procedures, kids are either raised on the doe, switched to artificial rearing at the end of the colostrum period, or fed by hand from birth.
If the doe is well fed and has a healthy, well-suspended udder, the “natural” approach of leaving kids with the doe gives good results. Milk is clean, warm, and waiting whenever the kid is hungry. Introduction to solid foods occurs as the kid samples what its dam eats.Colostrum
Proper colostrum feeding is critical to the health and survival of goat kids (Mellor and Murray 1986; Kolb and Kaskous 2003). If the doe dies or is too sick or malnourished at parturition to produce colostrum (Banchero et al. 2006), or if kids are removed from the dam at birth, then the owner must understand the principles of colostrum feeding. The first is to give enough, and enough is probably 50 mL/kg four times during the first day after birth. For owners who are not comfortable with the metric system, 1 oz/lb three times is a comparable total amount. These rules of thumb are equivalent to feeding approximately 20% of bw. The second principle is to give the first feeding of colostrum soon, preferably within the first hour after birth, and certainly within six hours. The antibodies in colostrum need to be consumed before the kid sucks on dirty, pathogen-loaded parts of its mother or stall. Death from hypoglycemia or hypothermia is also likely in cold weather if feeding is delayed. The colostrum should be of good quality, non-mastitic, and not contaminated with environmental or milk-borne pathogens. In a recent study, the Brix refractometer was used to assess the quality of fresh goat colostrum. The average Brix value of 58 samples was 21.2, and the Brix values were highly correlated with immunoglobulin (Ig)G concentration by radial immunodiffusion.
On average, kids consuming an average of 35 g of IgG achieved a 15 mg/mL serum IgG concentration and a serum total protein concentration of 6.0 (St. Clair et al. 2019).Only first-milking colostrum from healthy animals should be frozen for later feeding, and the colostrum from older animals that have been on the premises for several years is typically higher in antibody content against endemic pathogens than is colostrum from first fresheners. Revaccination of the doe against tetanus and enterotoxemia two to four weeks before the due date is commonly used to improve the protective value of the colostrum against these conditions. Failure of transfer of passive immunity is discussed in Chapter 7.
Owners should be taught to tube-feed kids that are not suckling well (and the body of a dead kid is useful for practicing the technique). This avoids both delays in colostrum consumption and the risks of inhalation pneumonia associated with pouring liquids into a weak kid's mouth. An 18 French feeding tube or urethral catheter long enough to reach the last rib can be safely passed without a gag in a newborn kid. It can be palpated between trachea and cervical vertebrae as proof of proper positioning. Gravity flow through the barrel of a 60 mL syringe or slow, careful injection is used to administer colostrum or milk as needed. Tube-feeding does not encourage a kid to imprint on people, so it does not interfere with nursing of the dam. The tube must be cleaned and sanitized between kids.
Heat treating of colostrum, as discussed in Chapter 4, is an important part of control programs for several diseases, such as caprine arthritis encephalitis (CAE) and mycoplasmosis. In some instances, first-milking cow colostrum is substituted for goat colostrum. Consideration should be given to pasteurizing cow colostrum to prevent diseases such as paratuberculosis, salmonellosis, and cryptosporidiosis. In addition, substituting cow colostrum may leave young kids susceptible to enterotoxemia, tetanus, caseous lymphadenitis, and contagious ecthyma.
Low-quality “colostrum substitutes” described in many lay publications should be avoided because they fail to provide antibodies to the kid (Scroggs 1989). In one study, feeding a total of 480 mL of heat-treated goat colostrum was associated with an increase of mean serum Ig levels more than 24 hours after birth of 1549 ± 425 mg/dL, whereas a powdered bovine whey concentrate gave an increase of 90 ± 80 mg/dL and a dried colostrum and whey bolus increased Ig by 290 ± 557 mg/dL (Sherman et al. 1990). Commercial products based on bovine plasma or colostrum and containing high amounts of IgG (150-200 g per calf dose) offer more promise.
Hypothermia and Hypoglycemia
The normal healthy neonate has a body temperature above 39 °C (102 °F). Hypothermia occurs if the neonate, especially a small, wet one, is exposed to cold, wet, or windy conditions. A secondary hypothermia develops if the kid does not obtain enough colostrum and milk to replenish its body reserves in less inclement weather. If the hypothermic kid is less than 5 hours old, it should be dried and rewarmed (forced warm air, heating pad on low, or very cautious use of a heat lamp to avoid overheating the kid or burning the barn), then given colostrum at 50 mL/kg. Body temperature should be monitored closely during rewarming, because overheating is rapidly fatal.
If the kid is beyond 5 hours of age, the brown fat stores around kidney and heart, used for non-shivering thermogenesis, have probably been depleted. The older kid that can hold its head up is fed by stomach tube and rewarmed, but if it is too weak to hold its head up, hypoglycemia is likely and fatal convulsions may occur during rewarming. To prevent this, the kid is given an intraperitoneal injection of glucose (dextrose) before being rewarmed (Eales et al. 1984; Matthews 1999). Commercial 50% dextrose is diluted with sterile or boiied water to make a 20% solution (two parts 50% dextιr>sc' mixed with three parts water). This solution is warmed to normal body temperature before use.
The kid is held suspended by its front legs and a spot 25 mm (1in.) lateral to and 25 mm caudal to the umbilicus is treated with a disinfectant such as iodine. A 25mm (1 in.) 20-g needle is inserted through the body wall at the marked location and directed at a 45° angle to the skin and toward the kid’s rump. After the glucose solution (25 to 50 mL) has been injected somewhere into the abdomen where it can be rapidly absorbed, an antibiotic injection is given and the kid can be safely rewarmed, then tube-fed when it is stronger. Providing a coat made from a sock with toe temexcess of less than -5.0. Ketones and lactate are not elevated, but d-lactate is substantially elevated (Bleul et al. 2006). The d-lactate averaged 7.43 mmol/L in affected kids, but only 0.26 mmol/L in control kids in this study. The d-lactate only partially explained the anionic gap observed in these kids, suggesting the involvement of some other organic acid absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract. Serum potassium is low or normal, averaging 4.2 mmol/L in 49 affected kids and 5.1 mmol/L in 35 control kids (Bleul et al. 2006). Chloride may be slightly elevated. Packed cell volume is below 38%.For a diagnosis of floppy kid syndrome, the kid should show no antemortem or postmortem evidence of hypoglycemia, septicemia, meningitis, white muscle disease, severe pneumonia, enterotoxemia, or dehydration with acidosis secondary to neonatal diarrhea. Owners tend to overdiagnose the condition, because the weakness that is the most prominent clinical sign can be present with many other diseases (Cebra and Cebra 2002). Rapid response to bicarbonate therapy is often considered diagnostic of floppy kid syndrome.
Necropsy is important to rule out other conditions, but findings are usually minimal. The abomasum may be distended with clotted milk and small hemorrhages may be present in the mucosa (Riet-Correa et al. 2004).
Treatment
The most important and often only required treatment is correction of the acidosis.
This can be accomplished by intravenous administration of 1.3% sodium bicarbonate, 125-200 mL over one to three hours. If laboratory testing has been performed, the initial treatment is based on the following formula:Body Weight inkg ? 0.5 ? (—Base Excess) = mEq Sodium Bicarbonate
Other authors have recommended that a factor of 0.6 or even higher be substituted in this formula in place of 0.5, at least for calves with changes in posture and demeanor due to severe d-hyperlactataemia (Lorenz and Vogt 2006).
Owners treat kids successfully with oral bicarbonate of soda, using 2.5-3 g (a little more than one half teaspoon) mixed with cold water. If the condition is not complicated by another problem, kids respond dramatically to one treatment, although a second oral treatment is sometimes needed 12 hours later and the occasional kid requires repeated treatments for up to four days (Bleul et al. 2006). Other oral alkalinizing agents such as Pepto-Bismol* (Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati, OH, USA) have also been used successfully, but the dose used has not been reported.
Another apparently important part of treatment is to restrict milk intake for 24 hours, offering oral electrolytes instead. Additionally, a broad-spectrum antibiotic to treat or prevent septicemia in compromised kids has been advocated (Tremblay et al. 1991; Riet-Correa et al. 2004).
Prevention
It is difficult to propose a means of preventing a disease whose etiology is not fully understood. However, moderating the amount of milk consumed if this is judged to be excessive seems to be a reasonable starting point. When kids are reared artificially, keeping the milk or milk replacer cold with frozen jugs of water discourages slug feeding. Maintaining good hygiene to limit the buildup of potential pathogens in the kid rearing area is of course desirable on any farm. In a long-term study in Italy, removing the kids at birth and raising them on cow colostrum and cow milk prevented the disease, and this was attributed to avoiding exposure to a bacterial agent from the dam that could cause d-lactic acidosis (Gufler 2012). During an outbreak, owners should be advised to watch closely for well-fed kids that sleep more than usual or are slow to suckle, so that they can be treated early.