the goat farmer's almanac

Kidding season ended late this year when Zillah's 3-year old, Tsilah, kidded 2 does on June2. One was stillborn with an oddly cork-screwed neck, the other one perfectly normal. I left the kid on her dam as we had neither the time nor inclination to bottle raise a single kid this late in the year.

An August-like heat wave settled in the following Thursday. Fortunately, we'd just installed a new waterer for the does before it hit so I wasn't too concerned about keeping them hydrated. All the same, hot weather is hard on goats as it is for any other livestock.

Sunday, Tsilah's now six day old kid wandered into the metal sided shed we use for the bucks and from which I'd removed Eleazar the day before because of the heat. I don't know how long she'd been in there but she was barely able to stand when we found her and her temp was 108. We put her in front of a fan and spritzed her with water until her temperature was down to a near normal 102. She drank water and suckled her dam. We left her for the night.

Monday morning, the kid was totally wasted -- limp as a dishrag. I was able to hold her up to Tsilah's teat and she drank a little. I left for work figuring for sure she'd be dead when I returned. I left work early dreading the whole trip home the thought of finding a dead kid. Turns out, the kid was still alive when I arrived home. So, I brought her in out of the heat and into our air-conditioned kitchen and called Doc Carmen. He told me to mix up 2 teaspoons of baking soda in about a half cup of water and drench her with about 20 cc then call him back in 15 minutes. Sure enough, within 15 minutes the kid stood up and even managed to stumble out of the box I'd put her in!

Turns out she had a case of heat-induced "floppy kid syndrome" which is a severe case of acidosis easily remedied by soda bicarbonate. After a couple of days in the house and a course of oral antiobiotics the kid was back to 100% by the end of week.

This is the first case of FKS in my nearly 14 years as a goatherd. Thankfully, we have Doc Carmen!