Newborn Kid and Lamb Care in Cold Weather

- All righty, well, we're gonna get started then.

Welcome everybody.

This is the second webinar in our Winter Webinar Series for Small Ruminants for the 23-24 winter season.

You may have been on the call in December when we did our winter care for sheep and goats, and this evening I'm going to be discussing newborn lamb and kid care in cold weather, which I think is very appropriate for the weather we've had the last couple days.

Melanie is going to be discussing pre-feeding principles for lambs and goat kids on February 13th.

In March, we have another presenter doing planning pasture species selection for sheep and goats.

And then we're gonna end our webinar series with Meningeal worm risk and reduction on April 2nd.

If you would like to sign up for any of these webinars that are in our series, please make sure to visit us on our web at extension.psu.edu.

So currently in our presentation, we're in webinar mode.

If you have any questions throughout the presentation, my co-educator, Melanie Barkley, is on the webinar this evening, she's going to be answering your questions in the Q&A pod.

So if you go to the bottom of your screen, you should see this little Q&A.

It looks like a little chat pod, but not really.

We do, I believe, have the chat enabled if we need to share resources throughout the presentation, but if there is anything that I allude to as far as a handout or a link, I will be sending that in the email follow up after the presentation.

If you require subtitles, if you look at the bottom of your screen, there are three white dots that say More, or close captioning depending on the device that you're watching.

If you click on those options, there should be a Show Subtitle and then you should be able to put in the English or Spanish or whatever language that you would like to see displayed on the screen for you.

And we will also have a post presentation evaluation with five poll questions.

If you could please stay on the presentation and fill out those poll questions, we would greatly appreciate it as it helps us in program planning throughout the year.

All right, I'm gonna switch over to my other presentation quick here.

Lemme make sure.

All right, Mel, can you see my screen okay?

It's not presenter mode, it's the view mode?

- It's in view mode.

- Okay, wonderful.

All righty, so let's get started then.

So again, we're gonna be discussing newborn kid and land care in cold weather.

My name is Chelsea Hill, I'm a livestock educator from Wayne County, Pennsylvania.

I'm not gonna read everything on that screen, just know that I was raised on a dairy farm.

I raised dairy goats for 15 plus years, started my own small business.

They're a heavy passion of mine.

I attended Penn State, I got my degree in agribusiness management and started working for Extension in 2016.

And those are just some of my girls in the background there.

As a reminder in this presentation, including the text, graphics and images, it's for educational purposes only.

This is not intended to be a substitute for veterinary medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

You should always seek the advice of a licensed doctor or veterinary medicine or other certified veterinary medical professional with any questions you may have regarding a veterinary medical condition or symptom.

Our presentation goals this evening are to go over what to do to prepare for the big day, the arrival.

We love lambing and kidding season, it's one of the best times of the year, one of the most stressful times of the year.

So how are we're gonna prepare for that big day?

Then what do we do when they get here and what happens when that didn't really go as planned?

So first off, I'm going to discuss how does the cold weather affect our livestock?

All of our livestock, our warm-blooded animals, or homeotherms, which means that they maintain their own body temperature in relation to the external environment.

So if it's hot out, they try to manage that and cool themselves down.

If it's cold, they do what they can in order to heat themselves up.

All of our species have a thermal neutral zone.

So this is a temperature zone in which an animal does not need to expend any extra metabolic energy towards keeping their internal temperature.

When we're talking about cold stress, specifically for our sheep and goats, what we're concerned about is our lowest critical temperature or the temperature at which our livestock start to require extra metabolic energy in order to keep themselves warm.

Now, for our sheep, it's approximately 54 to 90 degrees is the higher limit, 54 is the lower.

When we have freshly shored sheep, that's 50 degrees Fahrenheit, or if they have approximately 2 1/2 inches of wool growth, 28 degrees Fahrenheit.

Now our goats are very similar with that.

However, their lower temperature critical limit is 32 degrees Fahrenheit if they have a healthy winter coat.

So you can see the insulative properties of wool are just a little bit more adequate than the heavy cashmere layer and underneath our goat's winter coat.

Now, what we really need to be concerned about though is other external factors that will make those lower limits go even lower.

A big one is windchill because we can have dry temperatures of 32 degrees Fahrenheit, but if the wind is blowing 15 miles per hour, it can feel like it's almost zero through out.

This plays a very big role in our livestock because they need to keep warm in order to continue metabolic functions.

That also is why dry weather versus wet weather can be a very big determining factor of that as well.

If we have wet weather that's also windy, that pushes their lower limit even lower.

Depending on the fleece inherent cashmere growth that can raise that number up or down, and their body condition score.

If you ever have livestock out in the pasture and you have adequate housing for them, you've put all that work and time and energy in putting and making sure that bedding is appropriate for them out there.

And there they are out in the middle of the pasture and they've got an inch and a half of snow on them because they're happy and healthy.

They've got the adequate body condition that they need as well as good hair growth or wool.

And then their acclimation of climate.

So if you're bringing an animal in from a different part of the country, that is a completely different climate than ours is currently, that can have a play on that as well.

Now, why we bring this up and why this is important is because during late gestation, the way that our livestock try to accumulate heat or increase their metabolic action is through digesting and eating roughage.

That's why in the wintertime, we offer as much dry hay as possible, and I'll go into that a little bit further later down the road.

But this is a challenge for a lot of our pregnant ewes and does because they only have so much room in their abdominal cavity for both their digestive system and their unborn kids or lambs.

So we're gonna discuss that a little bit more, but it's important to know that we need to supplement at least a 1% energy requirement for every degree below the lower critical temperature if the animal is dry, and up to 2% for every degree below that lower critical temperature if the animal is wet.

And also, please remember, any changes to the nutrition of your livestock need to be done slowly.

Sometimes we do get into a bit of a panic.

We think we have a big storm coming, I'm gonna throw a little bit of extra feed out there.

And unfortunately, if they're not used to that and not built up to it, that can lead to a lot of metabolic disorders and diseases that we don't wanna see in our livestock, especially at such a precious time and an important time as late gestation.

But tonight we're gonna focus on our newborns here.

So their lowest critical temperature is 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Now, when we have lambs or kids that are born and it's extremely cold weather out, when they hit the ground, obviously, they're covered with amniotic fluid, they're wet.

So that limit, that 50 degrees Fahrenheit is automatically gonna be pushed lower.

But nature has really provided for our species, through thermoregulation, which is how our animals provide heat for themselves.

So again, they're gonna try and regulate themselves as much as possible to that comfortable limit as they can.

And they do this first by a layer of adipose tissue, or we call that brown fat.

If you can see this diagram on my PowerPoint, it actually demonstrates the areas of our livestock specifically.

See if I can get my pointer here.

We have our lamb right here, and the areas that they did find where the adipose tissue was found are highlighted in these brown areas with yellow splotches.

This is a calf and then this is a goat.

So if you notice that the goat kid actually has less areas of brown fat or adipose tissue on its body, lambs do tend to be much hardier than are goats do when it comes to cold weather and regulating their temperature, they're just a little bit more sensitive.

But that covers about 2% of our lamb and kids body and those energy stores that are taken from that brown fat converted to energy and then heat the blood of that animal.

So that's the rest of this diagram actually shows a cell and how that's broken down.

Once that's broken down, we have the energy, it warms up the blood, it then flows through the rest of the animal's body and increases their body core temperature.

That only lasts for so long though.

So we need to make sure that between the time that that animal starts using its brown fat, they also get colostrum.

So we're gonna discuss colostrum in the next slide here.

But colostrum is extremely important for that lamb or kid to consume as soon as possible because without it, the animal has no way to heat itself and it can go into hypothermia.

Two of the most common reasons for fatality in our sheep and goats is through starvation and hypothermia.

Usually this happens either when we have a lamb or a goat kid that was born, we think that everything's hunky dory.

We let them manage themselves on their own.

We don't realize that they're not consuming enough.

It's not enough to facilitate the energy requirements that they need.

So unfortunately, they use up that brown fat store, then they go into severe stress mode, which uses glucose in their body.

They pull that from the muscle and then they go downhill from there.

So we need to catch any of those issues as quickly as possible and address them, and we're gonna discuss that later how we need to do that.

But the best way that we can do in order to mitigate any fatalities due to starvation and hypothermia or anything to do with cold related stress is to be prepared.

So we're gonna discuss the best way that we can possibly be prepared for our young when they're born.

So I'm gonna talk about colostrum right now because I think it's particularly important to understand, especially in regards to the last slide that I just discussed.

Colostrum is the first milk that your dam is going to be providing for their young.

It's usually thick, yellow, sticky when you get it on your hands, it's very nutritious.

It provides everything that that young animal needs to start just basically surviving in order to heat its body, in order to get up, in order to move.

All of that energy is gonna come from colostrum.

All of the vitamins that they require come from colostrum and also any antibodies from the dam are going to be provided through colostrum.

And that is extremely important because our lambs and kids are born with just about no trace of an immune system.

So the only way that they can really develop that is through colostrum until they're about weaning age and that's when they have a full immune system.

This is required for our sheep or our lambs and goats to consume within 24 hours of birth.

And within 12 hours is optimal because the antibodies and the large cell sizes of colostrum are no longer digestible or absorbable by the system after 24 hours after birth.

And actually there's quite a reduction after 12 hours and 18 hours.

So we really need to push to feed within that 12-hour timeframe.

A minimum of 10% of the body weight of the kid or lamb for their birth weight is what we need to push.

That first feed, if you need to assist, needs to be at least three to four ounces, multiple times a day.

Again, we'll get little bit more about that later, but it is extremely important.

Now, the other interesting fact is that this photo is actually a picture of breast milk and you can actually take colostrum samples from another ewe or doe, typically an older one who has probably twins and has excess colostrum.

Take four ounces of that, put it in one of these breast milk bags, put the date on it and put it in your chest freezer.

That'll stay good up to one year.

Just in case you have a first time freshener, she doesn't have enough colostrum to provide for your kids or your lambs, you have it on hand.

They are the best source for you to get your colostrum supplement.

There are powdered forms of that available in the market.

They're okay, but when it comes to which is best, mom is best, and then the neighbors right down the road, that's even better.

There are differences in the quality of colostrum as well.

We're not gonna get too far into that in this presentation, but I will send a link.

If anybody's interested, Dr. Van Saun has been doing a lot of research on colostrum quality for small ruminants.

He did a wonderful presentation last year on that.

If you have time to watch it, it's free.

It's on our website posted, but I will send that later on in the email.

Going into colostrum.

If you are letting the dam raise her kids or most sheep will raise their own, we need to make sure that we're checking that they are consuming enough adequate milk, especially that colostrum.

And the easiest way to do this is to pick up your lamb or kid and feel their stomach, or you can even see it in the photos on the screen.

So the one on the left hand side, he had just finished drinking his bottle.

So our operation is dairy goats.

My son actually fed this one, and then we were able to take a photo.

On the right hand side, we have another kid, did not get his bottle yet, and you can see that he is much slimmer.

You can tell that he is not full.

When you feel his belly, you're gonna feel it a little bit squishy.

When a baby's full, it's nice and tight and that's what we wanna see.

But we're kind of step back a little bit because preparation for lambing and kidding actually starts way before they even hit the ground.

So we're going to start with preparations.

We're gonna evaluate our dams.

We're gonna shear, if necessary, we're gonna vaccinate our ewes and does, assemble as Melanie likes to call it, the stuff.

And then we're gonna prepare our pens and barns and we're gonna touch just briefly on creek feeding because Melanie's gonna cover that in our next presentation.

So I like to do evaluation of our ewes and our does multiple times throughout gestation.

Specifically, we start with mid gestation.

They should have a body condition score of at least three at this point in time.

If we see that our does or ewes are not around three or 3 1/2, or maybe they're over that around four, we need to start making nutritional adjustments at that point in time.

That's the best time that to do that, that's not going to affect gestation and potentially metabolic disorders.

Then again, during late gestation, which is 91 plus days on average for our gestation, we wanna evaluate them again.

If their body condition score is over 3 1/2, we might be a little bit concerned that they could potentially have pregnancy toxemia, which is when the dam cannot get enough energy essentially during the latest part of gestation, because the majority of the growth of the offspring is during late gestation, about 75% of that growth happens during late gestation.

Well, that's a lot of room that takes up the abdominal cavity of our sheep and goats.

So that animal can continue to consume, maybe lower quality forage and whatnot and just not have enough energy.

So we may need to start supplementing them with a grain ration or something that'll help increase energy.

Also, really important to note, during mid gestation or when you put your hay away or whatever you're using as a forage, you should definitely have that tested.

It always amazes me that you really think, your hay smells really good, it's really green, it's not very stemmy.

You send it in, you get it tested and the quality really isn't there.

But your brain tricks you into thinking, hmm, this smells really good, it looks really good, it's gotta be really good.

The only way you're gonna know that is if you test your forage samples.

So if you need help with that, we do have agronomy educators across the state that are more than welcome to help with that, and they'll do whatever they can to assist you.

And then at that point in time, especially during late gestation, we really wanna take note of any potential troublemakers.

So those that are heavy on body condition and those that are really light on body condition or maybe having stress or any gestation.

About four to six weeks before our lambs, mainly lambs, if you have a fiber breed of goat like angoras, you might consider doing this as well, shearing or crutching them.

So when we crutch a sheep or goat, what we're doing is we're removing the wool that is around the utter and up and around the vulva that helps in keeping the barn clean.

It helps the ewes, especially if you shear them fully, seek shelter when it gets cold out 'cause remember if we go back to when we were looking at those lower temperature limits for the thermoneutral zone, a cleanly shorn sheeps lower temperature limit is 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

So as it gets a little bit colder, they're going to wanna seek shelter inside.

And usually, I don't know if this is everybody's experience, but it seems like all of the lambs and kids always get born on the coldest, wettest, curmudgeons, if that's even a word night out there.

And if it's gonna help them to push them into the barn and seek shelter instead of having them out in the mud, that's perfect.

Lambs and kids can find teats easier.

So if we have a weak lamb or a sheet that has a lot of wool and there's maybe a lot of manure tags on there, they're not confusing that with a teat.

They're not wasting energy trying to suckle on something that's not a teat.

So that'll help mitigate that issue.

And then the ewe is less likely to squish their lamb.

So some of them with a really heavy wool cover, if they don't really realize what they're doing, they're giving birth to maybe a twin or a triplet, they may accidentally lay on their single or their firstborn.

So we'd like to shear them, again, four to six weeks beforehand.

For vaccinations in the sheep and goat industry, we have one general vaccination that we recommend to all producers, it's the C, D and T vaccination.

And what this is for is our clostridium perfringens.

This is a naturally occurring bacteria, it's anaerobic and it's also gram-positive, which means that it will, if in high enough numbers cause toxicity in our livestock species.

In young sheep and goats, the most common type of diseases are from types C and D that cause enterotoxemia or overeating disease and type T that causes tetanus.

Now, type C and D usually occur in lambs and kids that are really fast growing, they have a change in the diet really quickly, such as maybe a really abrupt introduction into creep feed or have dams that have really heavy milk production, that can do it.

Type T can affect the lambs and kids anytime during an open wound, so docking, disputing, castration, et cetera.

There are two different products on the shelf that you'll see.

The toxoid is a vaccination that takes about two weeks to cause an immune response, but it's longer lasting.

The antitoxin provides immediate short-term immunity, protection for periods of high risk.

So this is really for animals that you don't know the vaccination status of, and you're going to disbud or castrate or dock their tails, you would wanna give the antitoxin at this point in time.

The vaccination or the toxoid should be given to pregnant ewes and does about one month prior to partition.

This passive immunity that they gain from this will come through the colostrum, which is what we talked about earlier.

It's gonna help protect those lambs and kids directly after birth for several weeks.

This is extremely important because even if you gave a vaccination to a lamb or kid when they were a week old, they cannot develop that into their immune system until they're at least two or three weeks old.

So that's a wide range or window that that animal could then have one of these afflictions from the bacteria.

So we wanna make sure that we do vaccinate our dams before they have their lambs or kids.

And then just remember that all previously vaccinated individuals do require an annual booster for prevention.

So when you're vaccinating your dams, that's their annual vaccination.

And then we also, if you look at this top right hand corner, that is the proper injection site, especially for our meat breeds.

We don't wanna do any damage to the muscle underneath.

C, D, T is a subcutaneous injection, so you're going to want to pull the skin there and make a tent if you will, and directly put the injection there.

If you are uncomfortable with doing injections yourself, you can consult your veterinarian and they can come out and do herd health checks at the same time and they can actually demonstrate that to you if needed.

All right, the fun stuff.

Now, assembling the stuff.

This is a very short list of items that you should have on hand, that in no means that there are not other things that you can also have in your toolkit.

The number one thing that I like to have on hand is my breeding calendar.

So I know exactly right around the windows of when everybody is due.

That'll give me a timeframe for when I need to really get everything prepared.

And it also gives me a heads up for my schedule because it can be a little bit crazy.

You wanna have this stuff pulled together about a month before lambing and kidding season, just to make sure that you're checking any of these products that have expiration dates on them.

You don't wanna be using them because let me tell you, if it's the middle of the night and you need a product, and unfortunately, the one you have either you're completely out of or you don't have enough of it, or it's expired, you're gonna be up creek and that's not a position you wanna be in in the middle of the night.

You definitely wanna have OB lube, a rectal thermometer for those lambs and kids, iodine, or a similar disinfectant like Betadine, or Nolvasan for dipping navels.

And I actually like using the teat dip cups for cattle, so anybody that milks love those for this purpose.

Hand soap, something that is antibacterial is usually a little bit better.

OB sleeves, disposable gloves, disinfectant, small powerful flashlight just in case, scissors, clean towels, prolapse spoon, Nutri-Drench.

You can see in the photo here we have the sling for weighing our lambs and kids because we wanna put that in our records, bucket to have on hand for soapy water if we need that, or to just give water to the dam if required.

We see a syringe here, probably nothing more than 15 CCs would be adequate.

And then our needles, make sure you have sizes both for the dam as well as for the kids.

So I usually recommend something between an 18 gauge needle and a 22 gauge needle, having them multiple lengths because depending on the product that you're using, you may need something for intramuscular, so a half an inch to an inch is usually pretty good for sheep and goats.

Also, we wanna have this feeding tube right here.

It's basically a syringe.

I believe it holds four ounces and it's 15 inches long, that should be adequate for all sizes of our lambs and kids if we need to tube feed.

And then of course, don't forget your frozen colostrum that is in the freezer, and our bottles.

So this is a Pritchard nipple that you can just slap on any old soda can, bottle.

And then propylene glycol would be another one.

All right, so in our last presentation, Dr. Knight did talk about our shelter and what we should have in cold weather.

So I'm not gonna harp too much on it, but I do just wanna remind everyone for our barn and shelter, we want an area that's dry and well-bedded and it has to have adequate ventilation.

So when you're in the barn, if you see any type of moisture on the walls or especially on the ceiling, you do not have adequate ventilation.

If you're in the barn for about an hour, the air should exchange anywhere between four and 15 times in that one hour.

Any more than that, and you have a draft.

So what I'd like to say is picture yourself doing the whole finger test for air.

You walk in, you shut the door behind you.

If you can feel a really strong breeze up here, that might be a little bit too much, but make sure you go down where the animals are as well, because that is the important part.

They're not gonna be breathing the air that's six feet tall, they're gonna be down where they are.

And we also want that because a lot of bacteria, a lot of manure, that buildup can lead to a lot of pneumonia issues and disease if we have a moist environment.

So for lambs and kids, pneumonia is a really big thing that we wanna watch out for and mitigate as much as possible.

We want cover from the elements.

So out west, they don't really have a lot of these big buildings for their livestock, but they do have cover for the elements when they are lambing and kidding.

Again, that windchill factor is really the big thing that drives the temperature to the danger zone, if you will.

And then we wanna have room for jugs.

We wanna have a reliable source of water.

And I cannot stress this enough.

When you have lactating does or ewes, they need to have water or they don't produce milk.

If they don't produce milk, they're not feeding your lambs and kids.

If they're not feeding your lambs and kids, they're not doing their job and more than likely you're gonna end up with an animal that's starving.

So we need to provide them with a fresh source of water.

It may have to be heated if necessary, if you're able to.

If not, there are many creative ways that you can get water out there, maybe it's multiple times a day.

Lactating does, we'll need about three and a half gallons of water every day on average.

It's half a gallon per one gallon of milk produced.

If you're not raising dairy animals, that may not be as significant, but if you have a heavily producing sheep or goat, that will be very significant.

Now, when to hunker down.

So we've been experiencing some pretty cold weather lately.

I see some calls for polar vortexes in the future, something that's zero degrees and lower with the windshield factor.

There are a couple of extra things that we like to do just to be extra prepared and to keep the barn in the area as warm as possible to reduce any of those animals from getting cold.

Keep livestock undercover.

Again, windbreaks, if you do not have a perfect setup, million dollar barn, that is fine, you don't need that for livestock.

But keeping them under and out of the wind is a big thing, and wet weather.

We can add extra insulation.

So I've seen a lot of people that are turning to cattle panel kind of hoop house kind of barns, three-sided structures and whatnot.

You can actually push snow up around those structures.

Number one, it's gonna give them a little bit more stability.

And number two, it actually acts as insulation.

If on the inside you need to stack straw or hay bales to get through whatever that sudden temperature changes, you can do that.

Remember, you may need to change that after that event.

Remember that ventilation, no drafts.

So we wanna keep the majority of the moisture out, but we still need that air flow.

Water sources, that's a big thing.

If you can't get to the barn, then that's gonna be a problem.

Not only to check on your livestock, but they need water, they need dry forage.

So when animals are extremely cold, the best way that we can give them extra nutrition as well as to help them to provide heat for themselves is to provide extra dry forage.

For our late gestating ewes and does, we really wanna provide them a higher quality forage if we can.

Second cut alfalfa hay, whatever you have on hand, that's the highest quality you have, give them that.

That is less of a slap to the face than trying to give them additional feed that their bodies are just not used to.

Also remember, watch them.

If you see an animal that's starting to scour and we don't know how long this event is, we've had power outages and issues for two weeks here in my neck of the woods, you just don't know.

Keep observing them and make sure that your veterinarian's on call if you see any issues.

Then a side note, not gonna harp on this too much, but you can jacket animals if they are immunocompromised, and I am talking about animals that are newborn and they're showing signs of cold stress, they're shivering, they're trying to huddle together, sick animals, really, really old animals.

But those that are healthy, they do not and should not be jacketed.

I see a lot of people abusing how we use those jackets.

They can actually cause a lot of issues if you don't know how to do it the right way, make sure that you're using a fabric that is not going to absorb a lot of the urine and any moisture in the bedding, because that's also gonna be held against our animals, especially when we have immunocompromised animals.

You're bringing that cold wet right up into their chest area that causes respiratory issues.

So we wanna make sure that if you're going to use something that's cloth or homemade, it's great, but you wanna make sure you're switching that out constantly, making sure that they're not too cold.

Having ones that the animal can still urinate and defecate without any issues or causing any manure buildup in the jackets.

Just keep those things in mind.

Again, your healthy livestock, they're not gonna need these.

They're going to provide enough heat for themselves.

It's the ones that are immunocompromised that we worry about in times of extreme stress.

Now, getting our jugs and our kidding and lambing pens set up, these are optional, however, they're really beneficial to have, when we have smaller breeds, we go with four by four feet or five by five feet for our larger breeds.

We want at least one pen for every 10 ewes or does.

Make sure you have a minimum of two if you have smaller than 10 or less than 10 head.

And the reason that we put those kids or the ewes in with their lambs in this kidding pen, is to really make that bond really strong, solidify that, and also to keep an eye on our lambs and kids.

We wanna make sure that they're starting out right.

They're getting that colostrum, they're getting warm, they have a strong bond with mom and we ID them and do any of the aftercare that I'll discuss a little bit later kind of makes it easier if you need to get to 'em later, and there's 15 of them, dropping lambs at the same time.

But it's important to note we want a lamb or kid in the group pen first, and then as soon as the dam is done, then we're gonna move 'em into the jug.

We only have them in there for two or three days max.

They're not in there for a very lengthy period of time.

Again, it's just to make sure that that bond is secure, that everybody's doing well, it may even be a day and a half, just depends on how well they're doing.

And also, I'd like to have an extra pen on hand just in case there's an emergency, it could be for anybody that's lambing or kidding, but maybe one of the other animals that we have, a buck or a ram to keep them separated.

It's always good to have that extra.

Supplemental heat.

So when we have a lamb or kid that is hypothermic and they're flopping, they're not warm enough, it's going to take approximately four to six hours to bring that body temperature back up, and we can do that by supplementing heat.

Now in the photos that you see here, these are lamb and kid hotels.

We use them at the Penn State Beef-Sheep Center.

This is, I believe, a photo, I don't know if this is yours, Mel, or the one in the Penn State Barn, but this is a 55 gallon drum.

This one is metal, this one is plastic.

And the heat lamp goes in the top, it is attached there, this cord is out of the way.

You can see they looped it out of the pen as much as possible so that the dam doesn't think that it's something for them to chew on.

Make sure that inside of here though, we want at least 20 inches between where the lamp is and where the bedding is.

We don't wanna start a barn fire.

That is one of the most heartbreaking things that you can see and we see it every winter, there is definitely a danger of having an additional heat source in here.

I'll get to that in a minute, but we need to be precautious.

The other thing too is we wanna make sure if you're using something like plastic here, it's not gonna get too close to the sides of the plastic and it doesn't melt in them.

Also, sometimes this can direct the heat pretty heavily down here, so you wanna make sure you're monitoring this and that the lambs or the kids aren't getting too hot underneath there and they're not in a sauna environment.

Other supplemental heat ideas, or that I've seen and seen other people use is water bottles if they don't have something like this already set up, heated buildings, some of the larger dairy goat facilities because we pull kids right away, they have a separate barn that is completely heated, radiant floor heat, it's 50 degrees Fahrenheit, it's beautiful in there.

That is not something that everybody needs or is going to be able to afford, but those are options.

If you do decide to go with a heat lamp, which most of us do because it is the most economical way in order to supplement heat.

I do wanna caution you, and I know that Dr. Knight talked about this in the last presentation, but the type of heat lamp you use makes a world of a difference.

The one here on the left is a brooder lamp.

This is used for chickens, poultry, turkeys, et cetera.

It is not rated or built for a small ruminant operation.

The way that this thing hangs on the side of a pen, whatnot, it is not something that can be trusted.

I've had 'em fall, I've had 'em break in our pen.

So from personal experience as well as from what other people have told me, these are a no-no, the lamp that you use in here, that breaks and shatters.

And if that happens, it's within the means of your animals to eat that.

Don't ask me how I know, but it was not a good site to see.

Also, this gets very hot.

So if you have anything on here, dust, whatever, that's another way you can start a barn fire.

So these other options, are plastic, they're more durable, they have covers under underneath so that the animals do not have access to the lamp.

And then I always caution, make sure that you're plugging this into an outlet, try not to use the search protector strips and whatnot.

You want something that's directly linked into the electric.

Also have them high away from dams, it just depends on your situation, how you set 'em up and have a fire extinguisher in the barn.

You can go to Walmart, they're not that expensive, we have one in our facility.

You just wanna, just in case.

And again, when we're thinking about our facility layout, we do wanna make sure we have an area for creep feed.

That's where our young are gonna be able to get their grain.

When they have their first real interaction with grain, they will see mom eat and that's when they start trying to nibbling things.

But we wanna introduce grain and hay at a very early age and also water.

We wanna make sure that that's in a pan somewhere easy and not deep enough that they can drown in.

This is just a reminder, lambs and kids should not be in feeders.

They do tend to get in there just because it's fun.

Hey, why not?

That's their nature to climb, especially our goats, but what they're doing is bringing a lot of manure in them.

Just a quick reminder.

Now, we are getting ready to get to that day when everybody starts lambing and kidding.

So we're gonna go through and look at what is normal and then what's maybe not so normal that we have to look for signs, okay?

So signs of impending lambing and kidding, we see hip sinking, we see the vulva starts to swell, you can see that very well in this photo here.

It's gonna change color from a light pink usually to a dark purple color or a dark red.

The udder is tight and sometimes right beforehand they start to leak.

So you can see those signs about two to three weeks out depending on the age of the animal you're dealing with.

I've had some first time fresheners, maybe the buck got.

Nobody wrote down the date and man, she looked like she was gonna pop for about a month.

We were taking vets with one, it was pretty interesting.

So you can see those signs leading up to the main event.

But right beforehand, we're gonna see some more extreme behaviors.

So pawing the bedding, so nesting if you will, restlessness, can't get comfortable.

I have two kids, I can completely understand that.

She goes off by herself, refuses feed, is not chewing cud, might be kicking or looking back at her stomach.

And then we start seeing, hopefully an amniotic fluid sac first or sometimes we come in and we see this smiley little face coming out.

I am very much for a hands-off approach for the majority, if not the entire time if you can manage it.

And as you grow in your experience as a producer, you're going to get more and more hands off.

But we also have to remember that if we're in a production system, these goats and these ewes need to be able to lamb and kid as much as possible by themselves because that is more labor that's coming from you to assist them.

There are some new producers that are out there, boy, it feels like 24/7.

That's not always necessary.

And we should be making culling decisions based on some of the experiences that we have.

So that's my spiel.

When we get too involved, we also can break up that bond that needs to happen between the dam and the young.

That is what is going to drive them to take care of those animals.

And if they don't, then we end up with an orphan kid or lamb, and that means somebody has to bottle feed until they're weaned or hopefully, we'll be able to find somebody who wants to buy them and whatnot.

And a lot of us have side jobs or full-time job and this is the side job, if you will, and that's not always possible, so just keep that into consideration as we're going through.

We wanted to make sure the lamb and kid is in the correct position.

So you see in the photo here, perfect diverse position, front two feet coming out, nose closely followed behind in between the shoulders.

Our timeframe, once the amniotic sac ruptures, within 30 minutes, we wanna see a lamb or kid on the ground.

And then after that one is born, if there's multiples, the time should be between 15 and 20 minutes.

We wanna keep a special eye on first timers and those with questionable health that we're looking at throughout pregnancy.

Those first timers, they're going to take longer generally.

And then those who are four or five years old, they're, boom, done usually before you can even get in the barn.

So this is what we're looking for.

They're laying down, proper presentation, legs are coming out, beautiful amniotic sac.

And then, we see the lamb coming out, again, both front feet and then we have a live lamb and a ewe that's doing her job, she's cleaning 'em off.

That's what we're looking for.

All righty.

So then it's our turn just to make sure that everything is going well, right?

So let them do as much as possible, then we start to process them.

If it is an extreme temperature event, this is one exception where I say you may need to get in there and dry those lambs and kids off as quickly as possible.

Because remember, wetness is going to drive that lower limit lower and it's really gonna affect our lambs and kids, especially if there's multiples, all at the same time, they're all wet, you wanna get in there and dry them off as quickly as possible and try not to get in the way of mom.

We wanna dip the navel, again in that iodine solution.

Make sure if your lamb or kid is a few hours old, the umbilical cord is already starting to dry, we don't wanna dip those navels, because what happens is you actually seal the end of that and there could be bacteria in the navel or in the umbilical cord, and that'll cause navel ill and infection in there.

So we wanna do that when we're moving our kids and lambs to the jug right after they're born.

Strip the teats.

So we talked about colostrum and how important that is.

The teat ends actually have a waxy keratin plug at the end of them, and that prevents bacteria from going up into the streak canal, into the utter and causing infection, which is mastitis.

We don't want that to occur, but especially for first time moms, that keratin plug can really be stuck in there.

So if you have a weak kid or they're a new mom, they're not sure what they're doing, to encourage those lambs and kids to eat, if that plug doesn't come out, they're just sitting there sucking, sucking, sucking on that teats, nothing's coming out, so we wanna make sure we strip them once or twice, clip the cord if necessary.

Usually, I don't have to do that very often, mom usually turns around and she's sucking on that and it's not a problem.

And we wanna place in the jug.

And then we wanna monitor them for thriftiness.

If they go downhill, it's gonna go downhill really quick.

So we wanna keep an eye on them.

But this is what we wanna see, within a half an hour we wanna see them up, lambs and kids should be at least starting to stand at about half an hour.

Within an hour of birth, optimally, we wanna see them nursing.

So this is one of my does.

I know the kids are a little bit older, they are definitely dry.

This is actually one of those great moments when you come in, you have a mature doe and she had 'em during the middle of the night and they're up and feeding and you can actually see the one in the background, he's nice and chunky.

We picked him up, we looked at him and they were doing great.

You can't ask for anything better than that.

Just to review though.

Lambs or kids in group pen with pregnant ewes and does.

That's where they're born.

Then we move them into the jug for a day to three days, monitor everybody, make sure everybody's happy eating.

And then we're gonna move them to a group pen with nursing ewes and does.

And this is important because the nutritional needs of a late gestation ewe or doe is different than a early lactating ewe or doe.

They're two different classes of animals that we need to feed separately.

And also you don't want a young ewe getting confused with lambs running around and it makes sense in that way as well.

But nutritionally speaking, we really wanna separate 'em out.

Well, what happens when that didn't go as planned?

We're going to always observe, observe and observe again.

If you are working with your livestock on a daily basis, you know when something is not going right.

We're gonna talk about it a little bit more, how to feed lambs and kids and unfortunately mortality considerations.

So when we're looking for signs of lambing and kidding, this is what we wanna see on the left, what's normal.

what we don't wanna see though are prolapses.

So for our first time or our new producers, if you are seeing either of these photos on the right, the top one can be managed.

We looked at a prolapsing spoon earlier on in the presentation.

You can ask a veterinarian to come out and help you insert that in, or if you have a really good friend that has sheep or goats, they can assist you.

Just as a reminder that a lot of vaginal prolapses that happens because the animal's too fat.

There's not enough space, so there's building pressure and pressure goes out where the lowest pressure point is, and that's usually back.

So large babies can also do that.

A genetic component has been linked to this.

So if you do have any prolapses, they should be the first ones on your co-list as soon as the young are weaned.

And then the bottom photo is a uterine prolapse.

This is the entire system, this is the vagina, this is the uterus has been expelled.

Unfortunately, very few animals survive.

And usually those that do, it has to be done immediately.

A veterinarian is required to push this in.

We've had it happen before in our cows.

We try putting it in ourselves and that tissue is very delicate.

And the biggest part is if there are any tears in there from just walking around with that hanging out, it's not looking good.

there's usually a lot of medication involved and whatnot.

So just things to look out for and to be aware of.

Now, how do we know that we're taking too long, right?

So our water broke more than 30 minutes ago and we're seeing nothing.

She is straining hard, she's getting up, she's getting down, she's pushing, she's getting exhausted and that's what we have to watch out for.

And so within 30 minutes, if they don't have the first lamb or kid, we need to go in.

So you need to take off your rings, wash those hands, get some OB lube on there, and go in and feel the fetal positions.

You may need to adjust them in order for them to get out.

More than likely, it's just a front foot back but there are multiple different positions, they could be in breach, whatnot, twist it around.

If you're a new producer, it's a great idea to just practice this.

Look at a couple different diagrams, we have some online of different presentations and how to fix that.

Or your first time around, it's really great to have an age producer with you.

One thing you might experience though is maybe the cervix isn't dilated.

So the amniotic sac is coming up, but there's no legs, there's no feet, you can't feel any of that.

At that point in time, if you've never experienced that before, you can manually try to manipulate the cervix to try and loosen, but more than likely, you're going to need hormonal intervention, oxytocin shot, whatnot, and you're gonna need a veterinarian for that.

And then more than likely, this is what we really wanna focus on.

Again, what we're worried about in the cold weather, hypothermia.

This results from a lamb or a kid that was born during a cold weather event, usually outside.

I have experienced this and I think every producer that has ever raised livestock has experienced this.

You have maybe a sheep or a goat that not really high on the totem pole and they end up being bought outside if there's an in and out way of that building, and they end up having their lambs and kids outside.

And unfortunately, if it's at night and if you have barn cameras, you don't see them, and you miss them and they freeze.

It's unfortunate, but it happens, so we try to mitigate that.

The dam abandoned, they're young, so maybe they took care of 'em, cleaned them up, fed 'em colostrum.

But if they're older than 24 hours, when you find 'em and they're not doing well, usually it's because they're sorting and they just don't have enough of that energy reserved to keep them warm.

They didn't have enough colostrum or good quality colostrum quickly enough.

So maybe they had a traumatic birth and they couldn't get up, they couldn't nurse as quickly as we want them to.

Mom kept getting fuller and fuller, then she got more tender, they tried to eat, when they finally could stand up and we could go down the list that way.

So there are many different scenarios where hypothermia can exist, but what the main thing we need to look for is the rectal temperature is below 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

The typical temperature that we wanna see in our sheep and goats is 101 to about 103 and a half.

Once we get below a hundred, they're in hypothermia.

You will see other signs such as their mouth and ears are cold.

A lot of experienced producers, they'll stick their finger in their mouth.

Yep, it's cold.

All right, they're hypothermia.

We need to get them warm.

They're listless and sometimes, they'll actually start moaning.

So what do we do in a situation where we find an animal like this?

Well, first, we get 'em dry.

If they were just born, we wanna get 'em dry.

If they are laying on their side, we wanna keep them sternal.

We check their temperature.

If it's below a hundred, do not tube feed them right away.

We need to warm them up first because if you put warm milk into a cold body, that shock can actually kill them.

So we wanna warm 'em up first.

You can rub some glucose.

If you don't have glucose, honey, molasses, rub it on their gums because usually at that point in time, if they're that bad, they're not going to be able to suckle, they're not gonna be able to draw anything in their mouth, so just rub it on their gums.

That will start to absorb into their system to help 'em along a little bit more but then we want to focus on supplemental heat.

So if they are just a little bit floppy, they're not too bad, we can use that lamb and kid hotel, put 'em in there, make sure that mom is able to stick her head in there, still smell that baby, still have that connection.

If they are really, really bad, you find them in a pretty poor condition, you might need to bring 'em in the house.

A hair dryer, in a garbage bag for a while.

That usually helps, you could do immersion.

So putting 'em in a warm water bath, it's not my favorite one.

You can put 'em in a jacket in addition to being in the house, maybe, have a wood stove downstairs or whatnot, whatever your heat source is.

Typically, it's gonna take about four to six hours to do that.

Now, if you have a young mom and you separate the baby for that length of time, it's not guaranteed that she's going to take that one back.

So knowing that, we have to understand that if you're taking an animal in like that, it's more than likely gonna be a bottle baby, but miracles have happened.

Once they're up to temperature, we want to tube feed them two to four ounces of colostrum.

Again, back to that screen about colostrum, we wanna feed 10% of their body weight in colostrum on the first day.

So we weigh that animal and then we have to put that into multiple feedings.

You can't just give them 10% all in one shot, right?

Their bellies are not big enough to be able to handle that capacity and they need to be able to digest that slowly in order to get the energy that they require.

When you first start feeding 'em, at least four times a day, five times is even better, every three to four hours if you can, giving that colostrum.

And then if it's worse than that, if they're not responding to any of that, you should call your veterinarian, see if they have any other recommendations.

Now, if you are feeding orphans, so I know I'm getting really close to time here, but I wanna just finish up with two more slides.

We're gonna feed them every four to six hours for that first week.

And then you can start reducing that so it's not four times a day, you can reduce to three times a day, three times a day is pretty optimal.

Not always possible with everyone's work schedule, so you can push them down to two times a day.

They're gonna consume about 10 to 15% of their body weight per day in that milk replacer or what you're using to feed them.

Approximately, three ounces per pound of body weight per day, give or take, so that's your rule of thumb.

Milk replacers.

If you are purchasing them commercially, we need to make sure that they are using a milk protein, not a soy protein or alternative because it's not gonna be digestible by the animals as well.

And then we wanna look for 14 to 16% solids for our goats and higher for sheep, 18 to 20%.

And this actually reflects just how goat milk and sheep milk is.

Sheep milk is just a little bit higher on the butter fat.

If you do decide to use a self feeder, because if we do have any dairy animals here, again, we pull them right as soon as they're born.

You wanna make sure that you can start off with feeding 'em with a bottle like this and then you can put 'em on a lamb bar system or a nipple bucket, whichever you choose to go with.

And then in our industry, it's really recommended to start giving them cold milk replacer ad lib or whenever they'd like to self feed.

You mix that milk replacer up at about 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and then you wanna cool that down to about 40 degrees, maybe even a little bit colder and put that in a cooler or however you can to cool it down.

Put that in the feeder and then they can drink that throughout the day.

Depending on the season, we used to freeze just our milk containers and whatnot and put them in the hanging feeders, and that usually lasted for about eight to 10 hours.

Now, I'm gonna end, I know in a little bit of a low note.

Unfortunately, if you raise livestock at some point, you're going to end up a deadstock.

And this may be a little bit late to bring up for some of you because it's winter, the ground is hard.

But if you have animals that die on you, you have lambs or kids that don't make it or hopefully not a full grown ewe or doe.

But in Pennsylvania, so if you're in a different state, this may be different for you.

You need to dispose of them within 48 hours, that is through the Domestic Animal Act.

These are four different options in Pennsylvania that we recommend.

Composting requires a carbon to nitrogen ratio of about 25 to one.

It may require some heavy equipment because you do have to put a bed layer down.

It's about, I think, it's 14 to 24 inches, almost two feet.

That carbon material can be straw, sawdust, something mixed in, some manure is usable that way.

You put the animals in, you put more carbon material around them and then let that sit and compost.

It needs to be away from a water source at least 200 feet is the recommendation.

So anything that drains off of that is not going to contaminate a water source.

Rendering facilities, I know we have two different options in our area, they are not available everywhere and they're expensive.

Incineration, again, it can be very expensive depending on the location and it may cause odors that your neighbors are not gonna thank you for.

So keep that into consideration in the burial.

In the middle of winter, again, you're probably not gonna be able to bury what you need to.

If you are able to be cautious that you're not contaminating a local water source, that your carcass is completely covered because we don't want predators to come in, dig them up and drag them across the yard or your dog, 'cause I've had that happen.

That also may require having heavy equipment, so if you a small operation, that might not be feasible for you.

And then always check your local municipal regulations.

They may have something different depending on where you're located, you could be considered in the township that has an ordinance to it.

But the moral of our story here is be prepared.

Let's get our housing up to snuff.

If we need supplemental heat, let's get that well in advance before needing it.

And watch closely.

You know your animals, you're out there feeding them every day.

You're going to know when something is off.

So as soon as those lambs and kids are born, get 'em dry, make sure they're eating, settle down with a dam and they're good to go before we continue on our circle, and take action when appropriate.

So we do have some other excellent resources on our Extension website.

We do have a couple of online courses.

We have a sheep production course, a meat goat production course, and a dairy goat production course.

The meat goat course is coming up quick.

So any questions?

- Chelsea, I answered two of them so far in the Q&A pod.

- All right, very good.

Okay, so if anybody has a question at all, you can put it in the Q&A pod at this point in time.

And Melanie, I don't know if you have anything you wanna add that I may have overlooked or any experience that you would like to share?

- No, I just thought they were both good questions.

The one on the prolapse in the incidents, which there is a higher likelihood of those lambs having a rectal prolapse if they're docked short.

And then the simple question related to the position of the lamb, how do you know if it's coming backwards?

So you'll wanna look at the feet.

So if their feet are facing downward as if they're coming out and they're going to stand on the ground, that's positioned correctly.

If the feet are facing up, then those lambs or kids are coming backwards.

I see there's two more.

I'll just let you take those, Chelsea, and if you want me to answer anything, just let me know. - Yep, I will, thanks, Mel.

So David, you're not familiar with solids, so that would be your butter fat percentage.

There's also one at the tops, a dry matter percentage, that could be your solids as well.

But really when I talk about percentage wise, it's fat that I'm really concerned about.

That's a good question.

I dunno what is going on with my screen here, hold on.

(Chelsea speaking indistinctly)

Yes, there will be a link for the recording.

And actually, let's put that poll up, Mel.

I'll launch that quick.

So while I'm answering questions, there should be a poll that popped up on your screen.

If you could please take a minute to answer those five questions, I'd greatly appreciate it.

And again, you will get an email likely within the next four to seven days that will have the recording for this presentation as well as any handouts or links that I found relevant for this presentation.

Jeff, in a confinement information, any concerns coccidiostat prevention via common water source.

Jeff, if you wanna do a coccidiostat and we usually recommend something that is in the feed because it's more easily monitored for consumption's sake.

If you put a coccidiostat in water, you're not really gonna be able to monitor how much that they're consuming and that can have varied results in the end.

So monensin, decoqs are two coccidiostats that you can include in your feed.

Okay, Sherry, first time lambing, why (indistinct) not lambing the jugs in a larger jug?

Great question, Sherry.

So one consideration that I have for that is our animals are hurting animals.

They like to be with each other.

Sometimes you will see family groups stay together.

A lot of them will go off on their own when they want to lamb or kid.

But it is much more stressful for you to move them as they are mid-process lambing or kidding, even a few days beforehand if you think that they're going to lamb or kid.

You still wanna keep them in groups and in families because an animal or a sheep and goat that's by itself is going to drive itself crazy and being completely stressed out.

And we don't want that for them at this point in time, lambing and kidding is stressful enough.

I don't know, Mel, if you have any addition to that, but that's why we don't put 'em separate.

- Yeah, usually, if they've got one lamb or even a kid that's born already, that lamb or kid is up and moving around and that ewe or the doe is trying to lay down to have that second young, give birth to the next one and she's much more likely to lay down on that first one.

So it's ideal if you keep that.

Those animals out in that larger group area and then move them into the jug after that ewe or doe is finished lambing or kidding.

- Thank you.

An anonymous question, so I'm gonna read this one out.

Can a goat doe that dies of a uterine prolapse or rupture bleed out or a hypothermic kid not be processed for meat if done within 48 hours?

So I'm assuming that you wanna take as much advantage of your livestock as possible.

With a hypothermic kid, they're probably not even big enough for it to be worth it for you to use them as a food source for yourself.

There could be other reasons that you lose that animal that are disease related that you wouldn't find out until after.

If we have a disease that's zoonotic that passes through, I don't think there's many that would pass through meat at that point but it's always good to be over really cautious.

A doe that dies of uterine prolapse or rupture.

(Chelsea sighs)

If that animal was not given any medications that would not condemn the meat, it's possible, but we don't know the extent to the damage on the inside of that animal and what that did to the meat.

So there's a lot of ligaments, there's a lot of connective tissue inside of there and if the prolapse had anything to do with over pushing or a lot of stress and stimulation, you're probably gonna be looking at an animal that is really tough to eat.

Because when your animal is stressed like that, I mean, think about when you're stressed and you have a wound, a lot of that muscle will be tense.

So if they die at that point when their meat's really tense like that, I don't think it would be a good eat.

If it was live or die kind of a situation, I'd consider it but I think they would actually be more benefit as compost to be able to be used in a garden or in the pasture down the road.

- And I could add some chemical kinds of things, meat science wise on that.

So when an animal becomes stressed, they use up the glycogen within their muscles.

So when the animal goes into rigor mortis, they actually go into a a drop in pH and because that glycogen has been used up within the muscles, then that pH drop does not occur the way it should.

So it does lead to some quality issues and some toughening.

- Thank you.

(indistinct) When using the lamb hotel, about how long are you using it, just for the hypothermia while in the jug for one to three days?

That's a great question.

So as soon as your lamb or kid is warmed up, you really don't need to have that hotel on.

If it is a lamb or kid that's struggling, you might keep it on an extra 12 hours, 18 hours, don't ever turn it off right before nighttime.

That's gonna be a really drastic change in temperature for them.

If they're born one day, turn it off the next day, as soon as they've reached body temperature, they're up, they're eating, they have good movement to 'em because then what they're gonna do is they're going to learn to go to mom for their heat source.

So you don't want them to be reliant upon the supplemental and then day three comes, they need to get outta that lambing jug 'cause you need it and you're throwing them out into the cold essentially and shocking their system.

So once they get up to that temperature, it's not quite necessary.

If it's extremely cold weather, polar vortex weather, you might consider keeping it on a little bit longer.

But I don't see a reason as to keep 'em on too much more than necessary.

And then Whitney, when speaking of vaccinations, you refer to C, D, T, are these all covered in vaccinations such as Glanvac 6?

I believe that's a six-way clostridial vaccine.

So there are seven different types of clostridial that can affect our ruminant species.

We refer to C, D, and T because those are the most common across the industry.

But there are other types, depending on the location that you're at that your vet may recommend, okay, well, we have a case of black leg in our area where it's pretty common, then you may wanna have something that is a six-way rather than just the three.

I don't know, Mel, if you wanna add to that.

- Yeah, so I usually tell folks at a minimum, use a C, D and T vaccination and then if you have additional issues within your area or within your flock or herd, then you can add products that will contain a protection from additional diseases.

So I just looked up Glanvac, so it's going to cover protection with, it says Cheesy Gland, which is CLA, caseous lymphadenitis, and then this black disease, black leg, malignant, oedema, pulpy kidney, and tetanus.

And pulpy kidney is your overeating.

- Right.

All right.

Good questions.

All right.

If anybody has any further questions, please feel free to put 'em in the Q&A pod.

If you took our evaluation, I thank you greatly and I hope that you have a wonderful evening.

I hope everybody stays warm and best wishes with your lambing and kidding season.