# sucking reflex- how long can it take before she gets one?



## susie (Oct 28, 2007)

My doeling is doing pretty good- she's 3 days old now. Bumping wanting to nurse etc, but not interested at all in the bottle. We will put it in her mouth, but she won't actually suck on it .. so we end up tubing her after all. She's improved as far as now she is able to lie down by herself, which she couldn't do. She also is able to keep herself warm so i took away the heating pad ( she's in the house) She also is sleeping with her eyes closed ( as opposed to always having her eyes open, which is kinda creepy)

Any ideas or suggestions? any hope she'll eventually be able to feed herself and be a normal goat? 

Thank you!!


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## Kaye White (Oct 25, 2007)

This doeling so much sounds like a "dummy"....dang it I just can't get the word to come to me...but that's the slang for them, calf,lamb, even colts. 

It can take up to 2-3 wks for them to get the sucking reflex.
Kaye


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## Rose (Oct 26, 2007)

Bum calf.


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## Tracy in Idaho (Oct 26, 2007)

I just call them "coyote bait" and then Robin comes to my house and rescues them 

Tracy


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## Guest (Feb 29, 2008)

First doe of the kidding season had twins..both big strong babies.. BUT.. the *stupid* doeling had ZERO suck reflex. We worked & worked & worked (then tubed & tubed & tubed) Tried every nipple I could find. Tried to let her get hungry. (all that did was make her weak) Finally on day 10!!! (yes I had continued to tube this doeling multiple times per day for that long... simply because aside from not sucking.. she was so nice & NORMAL. growing, peeing, pooping, running, playing... just would NOT eat) she actually sucked, not much but 4 or 5 sucks. but that was it, never another attempt to suck. Then that next night, she went flat down & out on me.. floopy kid. Worked for two days (tons & tons of bose, b-complex, pepto..) she recovered and went back to her usual happy non-sucking self... on day 16 I'd had enough. More kids were due. I was honestly tried out.... called the neighbors (she enjoys working with *babies* of any species) Told her upfront that I didn't know if this doeling would EVER suck.. but if she could get her a bit bigger, maybe she could learn to lap from a bowl and start eating hay & such. (also talked to her husband about putting the doeling down if she didn't continue to improve...which he promised to do) ...... it took my neighbor 4 more days and HOURS and HOURS of holding & babying the doeling. - she actually took goat ration pellets, mixed them with goat milk, cut a bigger hole in a pritchard nipple and sort of drizzled it in... Little snot, just suddenly figured out nursing. went from nothing to sucking down 3 20 ounce bottles a day. She is now almost 2months old. Doing great, acts completely normal. (hats off to the neighbor. I'm giving her the doeling's reg. application and free buck service LOL) I was shocked that she really ever began to suck..... I'm not sure how much longer I could have tubed her that many times a day... it was a learning experience. I know I don't have it in me to do it very often, but I know I will not give up as quick in the future.
susie, mo. ozarks


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## susie (Oct 28, 2007)

Its difficult for me to put her down when she's now getting around the house like crazy. She's trying to butt everything and sucks on the towel in her bed, my husbands arm, my hair etc.
Could there be a physical problem keeping her from getting suction on a bottle? like tongue-tied or something?

Thanks!
Susie


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## Sharpgoat (Feb 7, 2008)

I have dealt with kids like this :crazy
If you take a 12 cc syringe with teat infusion cannula and just put a 1cc of milk at a time in her mouth to keep her for chocking on it.
It is a slow but you can get 4 to 5 oz of milk in them at a time.
And when she is hungry she well get the message to her brain that milk in her mouth makes her hunger go away.
Then you can try the bottle when she taste the milk the light :lightbubl well come on.
Fran


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## mill-valley (Feb 22, 2008)

You didn't mention what type of nipple you were using....have you tried a Pritchard nipple? My kids will almost always take to that. I would think if she's sucking on you, she knows how....she's just being really stubborn. Also you could try getting her to drink from a bowl and skip the bottle.


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## Kaye White (Oct 25, 2007)

> Bum calf.


That's what an orphan is called here, or a bummer. LOL...cause if not watched closely or put on a bottle, they'll "bum milk" off any cow that will let them.

Tracy, you're too funny!! :lol

Susie, have you checked her upper palet for a cleft? would be the only reason she "couldn't" suck a bottle..milk will sometimes run back out their noses.
Don't call her stupid...it's much nicer to say "dummy" because it's really a medical problem. Just keep offering her the nipple every day and I guess you could see if she will "drink" the milk from a pan.
Kaye


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## Guest (Feb 29, 2008)

Kaye, cleft palet was my first thought, I didn't feel anything (even took a flash light and looked all the way back). Her suck reflex now (at 2 months) is perfectly normal, hard strong.. she'll take you out for her bottle LOL. I guess *dummy* does sound better then stupid... but after weeks of tubing her. While everything else she did was completely normal for a baby goat. I began to wonder which one of us was the stupid one.. her? for not taking a bottle, or me for spending so much time keeping her alive LOL. It's weird. After that 3, almost 4 week mark... she just kicked in and became a perfectly normal doeling. She's a lovely, long, very dairy doeling. She has a mom that just over flows my bucket every morning. The neighbors will have a nice milking doe when she's grown (they now have another of my doelings to keep her company) In a pen of doelings - even at feeding time- you'd be hard pressed to guess which one she was.
susie


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## susie (Oct 28, 2007)

I've tried a regular nipple, and a pritchard nipple. Yes, i have checked for cleft palate too. I had a little success putting the nipple in the side of her mouth and she sort of chewed on it and got some milk in last night.
I also thought about pan feeding- she licked up a drop of milk that was on the coffee table-- but haven't been able to get that across yet ( pan feeding).

She is interested in hay she tries to munch it so she has a little hay in her bed.
She didn't poop yesterday, so that is concerning to me now too. Also do I need to giveher cdt antitoxin? My does aren't vaccinated --thank you guys for the help with her-- I know she's got a long ways to go if she's going to make it. I also could put some colostrum in her next feeding ( it's a laxative, right?)
my hubby has taken yesterday and today off to take care of her-- what a guy-- he's not all that concerned with whether the baby lives or dies, he just knows it's important to me to give her as best of a chance as we can. Not that he's callous, he just would not have gone to the length that we have if it were up to him-- so it really means alot to me that he's willing to take time off to take care of her for me .. aww!
I'll post a picture of her soon-- she's already not just skin and bones like she was when she was so dehydrated. She stands and streches and runs around-- although like i said I know she's not out of the woods by any means.

Susie


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

It makes perfect sense with white muscle disease or nutritional muscular destropy that although the sucking instinct is strong that with the nipple in the mouth and the loss of muscle strength they can't actually nurse. The tongue is the muscle in this case being affected, lots of kids it strong enough to at least nurse even if the tongue hangs out of the mouth and it's legs. Sad is when it's the heart and they simply die when a few weeks old, the muscle of course being the major muscle in the body. Are you continueing with the E and Bo-se? vicki


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## Guest (Feb 29, 2008)

I know in my doelings case, there should have been no way she was suffering from white muscle. All the herd gets BoSe a few times a year. Moms-to-be, including hers, were given BoSe two weeks before they kidded. I give all newborns BoSe & vit E. My little *dummy* since I didn't know about *dummy kids* LOL.. just kept getting BoSe & vit E. LOL.. Proved to myself it's hard to OD them... On mine, it was like every thing in her worked just fine...but she couldn't seem to figure out how to roll her tongue up and around a nipple. She had a good swallow reflex. I could have syringed her, but was afraid of her aspirating on the milk, hence choosing to tube....
Susie, my girl really turned around once the neighbor got ahold of her. She took a pelleted goat ration mixed it with milk. She cut a larger hole into a pritchard nipple. Filled the bottle with her *slurry mix of milk/ration* got Gertie in her lap, and would just sort of pour, squeeze the mix... she made it sort of thick, so it didn't choke her up. She fed her a little bit, very often... even got up with her at night.. don't think she let her go more then 6 hours... she would always...just like I had.. offer a bottle of milk FIRST.. just in case. Finally. One day.. she grabbed on to the bottle, ate 8 ounces of milk in her first bottle feeding.. then went straight to 20 ounces 3 times a day. She is now eating the pellets and consuming quite a bit of hay... good luck with her.. you sound like you have a good & loving man in your life...
(mine too got somewhat constipated. I simply added a bit of karo syrup to one of her tube feedings. It got her going) 
susie, mo ozarks


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## Cotton Eyed Does (Oct 26, 2007)

I tube fed a boer doeling for 6 days before she finally decided to suck a bottle. I think she was just dumb and got used to me tube feeding her and thought that was "the way she was suppose to eat". I let her go several hours between feedings and would offer her a bottle, tried every kind of nipple imaginable, but just all of a sudden on the 6th day she started nursing. Something just clicked in her little pea brain.


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## CGFarm (Nov 13, 2007)

susie said:


> We will put it in her mouth, but she won't actually suck on it ..
> Any ideas or suggestions? any hope she'll eventually be able to feed herself and be a normal goat?
> 
> Thank you!!


A friend and i were discussing "dumb" kids just the other day. What she found was a Vit E def. There's research (I'll see if she can send it to me) that shows that Vit E plays a major role in brain function. Try giving her 3 cc's of Vit E and see if you see an improvement.

Denise


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## susie (Oct 28, 2007)

WEll, GOOD NEWS!! Last night she licked about an ounce from the end of the nipple- this took about an hour. Then I got to thinking about her constipation, and how some animals need to have their bottom licked before they can poop, so I got a warm wet washcloth and wiped her bum and she immediately started head butting so I put the nipple infront of her and she just started sucking !  She acted like she was starving, but i didn't want to overdo it so I gave her about 4 ounces. In a couple of hours she was acting hungry still so I gaveher about 6 ounces ( hopefully not tooo much) she latched right on and drank it right down. YAY!

So this morning I figure she's readyfor a bottle, and she is not interested at all ... hubby thinks she's just not hungry, and he's probably right. So we'll try later when she seems more hungry. She is nibbling at her hay though.

I've been doing the bo-se and vit e, yes, it does seem like it's a brain thing, she startles easily and is very noise sensitive. But this is the best (most like a normal kid) that she has been ( well, last night) so I'm most encouraged! My husbnad was SHOCKED-- he went to the Y and I stayed home to take care of her, that's when she started sucking.-- he thought it would never happen.


Thanks everyone I will keep you posted-

Susie

Ps her name is Gabby.


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## Sondra (Oct 25, 2007)

good going rub Gabby's bum anytime your feeding her for now it is some how a natural thing rub bum /suck suck


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## susie (Oct 28, 2007)

Here's a picture of her-- hard to a good one as she does not stay still , she's busy learning how to jump onto the couch :rolleyes

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y134/crowinghen/Ocean_0.jpg

susie


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## Truly (Oct 26, 2007)

Oh, what a cutie. So glad you figured out how to get her to suck.

I bet it doesn't take long for her to not need that additional prompting.


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## Sondra (Oct 25, 2007)

She is sure a pretty thing.


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## Belle (Oct 26, 2007)

Glad shes got it figured out now, she sure is cute!


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## susie (Oct 28, 2007)

Truly said:


> Oh, what a cutie. So glad you figured out how to get her to suck.
> 
> I bet it doesn't take long for her to not need that additional prompting.


yeah, she doesn't need that anymore 

Susie


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## Sondra (Oct 25, 2007)

YEH!!


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## Cotton Eyed Does (Oct 26, 2007)

YEA.... glad she took the bottle. :biggrin


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## Katarina (Oct 25, 2007)

the one that we have had like this finally clicked and did great...we seemed o break through to him by having his suck on our fingers (which he did with gusto) while slowing syringing milk into the corner of his mouth. For some reason that was all it took and we will try it from now on. It helped keep him from choking (I think) because he was already sucking on my finger, we just added the extra incentive of milk.


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