I am sorry to say that we lost the first kid born on our farm. She was only 8 days old. Monday morning she was doing perfectly, running around with the other goats - the picture of a healthy week old kid. By 6 p.m. the doeling could barely stand up. She could not walk at all. Some storms had come through an hour or so before and the temperature went from being in the 90s to the mid 70s very quickly. She was wet and a little cold when we found her. The goats all usually make it back to the shelter when it rains, but they did not this time. I think it was because the baby goat may have already had something wrong with her that kept her from being able to walk. We called people who were way more experienced in goats than we were. We were advised to get her in the house and get her warm. To keep her off milk for a little while as well. We took her temperature with an old rectal baby thermometer. I am not sure it was the correct one to use, but it said she her temp was 102.4, which I was told was within normal range. She had been nursing great since the day she was born and looked well fed. I could not see any external injuries on her body. She had no control over her muscles and could not even hold her head up. Her breathing also seemed a little labored to me, not a relaxed breathing. We looked online for her symptoms. We found information about Floppy Kid Syndrome (FKS) and the symptoms sounded a lot like what she had. It recommended giving her some diluted Sodium Bicarbinate (Baking Soda) in water. We did that since we didn't think it would hurt. She had been crying out from the moment we took her away from her mother and kept crying out...probably for her mother or because she was scared to be in a strange place or from pain, I didn't know which. We waited an hour or so to see if the Baking Soda helped. She did seem to do a little better, her eyes seemed to focus a little more, but just barely. She kept trying to move around the box we had her in and at around 11 p.m. or 12 a.m., she even tried to stand up. I took that as a good sign. I was very hopeful that she would be doing much better by morning. We gave her some electrolytes (about 2 ounces) to keep her from becoming dehydrated and let her rest. She would cry out loudly through out the night and she kept breathing, but she never stood up. By about 4 or 5 a.m., she stopped breathing.
There could have been many things that were the cause of her death. She could have gotten trampled and had internal injuries that we could not see. She could have had FKS, however, sites online seemed to say this syndrome is easily treatable and therefore no research was ever going to be done on it to find out the actual cause of the illness. I have the fear that we did not do all that we could, due to ignorance. It could also have been that there was just nothing that could have been done to save her. I know this is just part of raising animals. It is still alarming none the less that the first goat born on our farm was also the first goat to die...and we may never know the cause.
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