Warming a Cold Goat
We have had no success with putting the cold baby goat inside of the plastic bag and then into the hot water.
So finally, we decided to use a new way and it worked perfectly!
What you need
- Cooler box
- Heat pad or electric blanket
- Towels (bath towel size is great)
- Hair Dryer
- Thermometer
- Molasses or honey + Cayenne Pepper mix
- warm colostrum for new born baby.
1) Place a heat pad or an electric blanket inside of the cooler box. If it is too deep, add some towels to bring the surface higher.
2) Place the baby on the sternal position (Like Sphinx) inside of the cooler box. If he has a hard time being up right, you can place two rolled towels to support his body by sandwich his body
3) Place a bath towel over to make a dome
4) Blow hair dryer from the bottom side towards the towel
5) You could keep the thermometer on his bottom all the time to see his internal temperature all the time. Make sure not to blow hot air directly to the thermometer
6) while blowing the hot air, you can massage his body to stimulate.
7) While blowing the hot air, you can also smear honey or molasses + cayenne pepper mix on his gum in order to keep up his brain alert.
8) Once he is on the normal range of temperature, give him some warm colostrum or warm milk and then let hims stand ups with your help. Standing up will help his brain to get more stimulated wanting to move or wanting to nurse more.
** You cannot give any food or milk if the goat's temperature is below 101.5F, DO NOT feed any milk or food. When the body is cold, their body is shut down to take anything. First thing you need to do is bring back to above 101.5F.
When you don't have colostrum, here is the homemade recipe
Homemade Colostrum Recipe
3 Cups milk (preferably raw and whole. In a pinch you can use store bought, but results may vary.)
1 egg: lightly whipped.
1 Tablespoon sugar, honey, or corn syrup. Whichever one you've got.
1 teaspoon cod liver oil. This ingredient is somewhat optional...