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Hercules was born May 28th, 2020. He is the son of Pygmy goats Zoey & Zeus, our first goats we bought. Zeus was due to be banded around New Years Day in 2019. We went on a cruise for my 30th birthday that year and planned to band him as soon as we got back because it lined up with him being banded since he was a little over six months old. We got back from our cruise and banded Zeus that weekend. Little did we know, we were already too late. Zoey was already a bit on the “fluffy” side, so we didn’t find it out of the ordinary for her to slowly be gaining weight. We just figured she was eating too much Beet Pulp, grass, and hay and left it at that. Late April or early May we finally realized that she was pregnant.
We were already planning on installing cameras and wifi in both of our goat pens. That way, when we’re away we can look in and keep an eye on things. We have neighbors who could run over real quick if we have any sort of problem while we aren’t home. This ended up being one of the best (and most expensive) decisions we made. But, we do have wifi over halfway back in our 4 acre yard. Our joke is we installed wifi so our goats can have wifi and Netflix. Want more information on our wifi setup? Let me know in the comments, I can do a post on that with the exact equipment we use.
We looked up everything we could on the internet about signs of labor, what to do if there are birthing complications, etc. There is only one vet within a 50 mile radius of our house that is an actual farm vet, and they have not been accepting new clients and haven’t been for years. We figured we would learn everything we could from the internet and just wing it and hope for the best. This is where we started to panic.
Zoey continued to have a vaginal prolapse. It went from happening once every week and a half or so, up to happening pretty much nonstop throughout the day. We would no more get back in the house from taking care of her, check the camera, and it would be sticking out again. It was horrible.
Don’t know what a vaginal prolapse is? Basically, she was pushing her vagina out of her body. It’s something she had no control over, and there are only 2 ways to potentially fix this. Have a vet put a staple in it to keep it inside her body, buy her a sling looking thing (Amazon sells these) to wear to keep it inside. Since we don’t have the luxury of a vet helping us out, we used the internet to find a solution.
The general consensus was use warm water and a gloved hand. Rinse it off as well as you can with the warm water and used the inside of your hand to slowly push it back inside, making sure to not push too hard as it can tear her vagina. The first few times of doing this was just horrible, she obviously didn’t cooperate, and I was so scared of hurting her. But, after doing it several times a day sometimes, it got easier and she seemed to get the hint we were trying to help her. We did keep track of every time we had to push it back in and every time we saw it when it went back in on its own, in case we had a true emergency and needed that information.
In mid-May it seemed like she was getting ready to have her baby. She started to move the hay around in her house, she kept kicking Zeus out of the house so she could have it all to herself. At this point we moved the goats around so Zoey had the whole house and pen to herself. We started watching Zoey like a hawk on the cameras. We didn’t want to miss the birth of our first baby goat(s). There wasn’t much going on right away. She basically just kept standing up, laying down, pacing around, and eating a little bit every now and again.
Finally, the night of May 27th, Zoey’s water broke. We went back and there was this HUGE puddle in her house. I was so excited and could barely sleep. Matt and I took turns waking up every hour to check the camera in her house to see if there was any progress. Around 4am I woke up to check the camera and something looked “funny” on the camera. I didn’t want to wake Matt up if it was nothing. It was pouring down rain (of course). I ran back in my t-shirt, shorts, and crocs. There was a tiny little head popping out of Zoey. I wasn’t sure how long the baby had been like that because it had been a whole hour since we checked on her last. I didn’t even take time to put on gloves. I gave him a little tug and out popped the cutest little goat I’ve ever seen in my life. I grabbed the towels we had waiting and wiped off his face and made sure he could breathe. I kept watching Zoey to see if any more babies were coming.
Hercules was her one and only baby and he was so perfect. He looked IDENTICAL to Zeus. We initially were concerned about Zoey liking him, she has a very strong personality for a little Pygmy. She was obsessed with him. She wouldn’t let him out of her site. She made him sleep behind her in the house so she could protect him. She cleaned him probably 100 times every hour. She was the perfect mother and we couldn’t have been more proud of her.
We left Hercules in with Zoey as long as we could. Once we got to the point where she could potentially get pregnant by him, we moved Zeus back in with Zoey and put Hercules in our “Bad Boys Club” with our other unfixed boy goats. He was always the runt of his pen, but he was always in charge. Our alpines protected him and always let him sleep in the corner of the pen where it was warm and the safest. Our Nigerian Dwarf, Zorro, and Hercules were best friends.
One day in January 2021, Matt and I were filling up the hay feeder in the Bad Boys Pen. The goats met us at the gate like they always do. Hercules started to go up the ramp and fell off and onto the ground. He didn’t even try to get up, he just laid there. Matt picked him up and he went up and into the house like normal. We watched him really closely and he seemed to be eating and acting normal. He was always a loner and just did his own thing, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to hang out in the house by himself.
We noticed he seemed to be acting “off’. We brought him in the house and gave him electrolyte and some vitamins. He seemed to perk up a bit but it was really cold outside so we kept him in the house for a few days to keep an eye on him. He seemed to be getting better so we took him back outside and would bring him in at night for a few hours to hold him and check on him. He started to go down hill pretty fast. He was very lethargic and barely eating. We kept researching online things to give him to try and give him a boost. Sunday night we ran to Rural King to find the things we found online. We watched him on the camera pretty much the whole time we were gone. It looked like he fell asleep in his food bowl but he was still moving around. When we got home I gave him his first squirt of Nutridrench and he gasped a little bit and his head dropped.
We believe he died of anemia. Even after trying everything we could think of to help him, we believe when he collapsed in his pen it was already too late at that point. We feel like we were just making him comfortable and making sure he felt loved until he just couldn’t go anymore.
We lost our first little baby that night, and it was devastating. From Zoey’s vaginal prolapses, seeing Hercules being born, watching him grow up with Zoey close by and then making friends with goats that were 60 pounds heavier than him, we have so many memories with him. Everyone who came to visit just had to hold him. He was so tiny and cute. It was like holding a little stuffed animal.
Although our first goat baby story doesn’t have a happy ending, we are hoping to have many more goat babies here and plan to share those stories, both good and bad, with you as well.
Zoey & Zeus: Hercules’s Parents
To see our tribute video to Hercules, check out our Youtube Channel: Alpine Adventures Farm
Here is a direct link to the video
Originally published at https://theblogofkaliann.wordpress.com on February 11, 2021.