# Lutalyse



## Rosesgoats (Apr 22, 2011)

I am interested in learning about lutalyse and how to make a doe give birth at a convenient time, so I can get the kids for CAE prevention. What's the procedure? Are there complications to using it? What do I need to know about it? Is it an easy thing to use or does it take a lot of experience to do it right?


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

You have to have a breeding date. As in you took the doe to the buck, she was bred, you took her out and she had no other access to the buck period. Because lute evacuates the contents of the uterus, no matter if the kids are viable or not.

2cc IM and does here (Lamancha crosses) Alpines, LaManchas and Nubians kid in 36 hours. Yes some were at 32 hours, some at 40 but 99% were at 36 hours.

Since you will not be using lute to early (ie...a doe in hypocalcemia/ketosis/metobolic disease) and you are just going to use it to kid her out a day or two early so that you are there...you do not need to use Dexamethazone with it, it is for maturing the lungs, and the lungs are already mature, because you KNOW your due date  

Back when CAE was rampant in all herds, lute was used routinely to deliver does so the owner was there to snatch away kids. We used it so routeinly that my daughters gave the shots. We used it routinely for about 8 years. V


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## Rosesgoats (Apr 22, 2011)

Neat! Good to know! I always hand breed my goats already so knowing the due date is not a problem. I also have very regular goats who tend to deliver on the same gestational date every year so I can guess pretty closely as to when the kids will be done. What's a good amount of time before their due date to induce? Can you wait too long to induce? Does this affect their breeding and kidding in the future?


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## lonestrchic23 (Jan 7, 2011)

Due to a stealth kidding I tried very hard to be present for I'm also interested in this....

Given your sure of the breeding date, what day do you lute on? 

If I buy a bottle will it last long? Or should I just see if the vet can sell me a dose? If I go this route I'll have 3 does I'll use it on. 

As long as I have my dates correct are there any complications that are common?

In what cases is Dex used? Only in situations where kids lungs may not be fully mature?


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## KJFarm (Oct 26, 2007)

145 days is what I use. I've induced 7-10 days early in some Alpines that tend to have huge kids.


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## tlcnubians (Jan 21, 2011)

We induce our Nubians at 147 days using lutalyse only, but a lot of people do use both Dex and lutalyse. This year for the first time ever we had a doe that did not respond to her first lutalyse injection and after 40 hours we took her to the vet to be sure she was pregnant. She was and the vet gave her another injection of lutalyse and also Dex and she kidded within six hours of receiving her second shot with a buck and a doe kid, no problems.

I will also give a larger injection of lutalyse, 4-5 ccs, to a doe whose labor doesn't seem to be progressing like it should. According to Goat Medicine, a large dose of lutalyse will help with cervical dilation. Then within an hour Tom (my husband and goat mid-wife) can go "fishing" for babies since lack of progress is usually a good indication of kids not presenting properly.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

If you give the lutelyse 5 days before they are due to kid, she then is going to be kidding right before her due date. Also know that nubians go 150 days, LaMancha's less, so know your breed.

Dex is used even in humans to mature the lungs, it is invogue with the boer goat folks to use dex with lute for simple deliveries, if you ask them why there is no answer as to why they use it. I have never used it for a simple delivery, I have used it back when hypocalcemia (then diagnosed as ketosis) was out of control in my herd because we didn't feed calcium, so in trying to deliver does to early because they were going to die, we tried to save the kids by maturing the lungs early....it is a very tiny window in which dex can work, it rarely did.

Obviously for those of us who used it every breedings season for years on our positive herds, if there had been issues with using it we would have found something else to do. Delivered very early, and you do have a chance of retained placenta, so always have calcium on hand to give to does who don't have strong contractions when pusing, and oxytocin on hand for those who after about 2 hours have no placenta showing (pelvic check for other kids first), or 12 hours without the placenta dropped...do pelvics to make sure the uterus is empty.

I don't buy a bottle anymore because I so rarely use lute anymore, and if I was just going to use it on 3 does I would just go buy 3 syringes of it. I keep a few syringes of it in the fridge for emergencies, but hate throwing away drugs, so I don't buy full bottles of much of anything, my vet will pull cc's for me in vacutainer tubes, so I have enough to get me through until I can make the 17 mile trip when she is open. Right now the only full bottles of anything I buy is Naxcel, gentamycin and Bo-se (oh and my new injectable mineral) well other than OTC stuff.


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## lonestrchic23 (Jan 7, 2011)

Thank you Vickie!

The three does I'm considering this for are 2 Alpines & one Ober/Alpine cross. My Alpine who kidded this year, I did not have a definate due date on (bought her bred) so I'm not sure what typical Alpine gestation is.

I will talk to my vet & see if I can get Lute & Oxytocin.....and perhaps I'll see if he can get me CMPK injectable as well. 

Being able to know the time frame they will kid would make my life so much easier! 

Also, slightly off topic.... I saw you mention super gluing teats on does just in case you weren't out there to catch ASAP. If you super glue teats for extra insurance in CAE prevention, can you get it off after the kids have been pulled & still milk the doe (milk for house, raising pigs ect.) If so, how do you get the glue off? 

My Alpine had triplets, dried & nursed in under 2 hours, and since I've only tested these goats once (neg through biotracking with titers under 15) I'd like to do all I can to make sure my CAE prevention plan is as good as I can possibly manage.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Super glue will loosen with detergent and water. Yes it takes some work, but having to destroy doelings or bucklings you are wanting or are presold...well super glue works where teat tape doesn't. I learned this from a judge, I tried teat tape, and we were using duct tape! We would leave the winter udder hairy so the duct tape would stick to the hair even! Even then we had does who would work at it to get it off...super glue is goat proof. Vicki


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## lonestrchic23 (Jan 7, 2011)

Thanks everyone for the advice and info! 

I think I will super glue as well for extra security. I'm helping a friend get negative stock & promised her a doe out of my Ober/Alpine. She's had a mess with goats so far & I want to do the best I can to make sure they are raised on strict CAE prevention. 

Planning on buying colostrum & feeding store bought milk just in case. All my girls tested negative through biotracking in April (& one doe tested negstive prior to purchase 7 months before the April test), but since I've only had them a year, I don't feel comfortable trusting just one test result. 

Now that I understand how these meds are used, & dosages I can talk to the vet about giving me the RX's.


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## jejarvis (Nov 11, 2009)

I have used Lutalyse to hurry along labor on several does whose ligaments were indeed starting to soften and I knew their approximate dates so I knew they were not too early. It would push them into labor a bit faster, and worked for me so that I could be there when they kidded. I also used Dexamethasone this year on a doe with ketosis/hypocalcemia that was going down quick. It worked so great, got her back up and eating before labor started, labor was quite quick and she had a great appetite post kidding. I don't think it would work to time the labor and synchronise it like the Lutalyse. Dexamethasone mimics the signals that the kid(s) put out that just kick starts labor. If the ligaments were not ready, I think it may be a longer labor. My doe that I used dex on had her ligaments gone, and just too weak to go into labor. I think the idea about using both dex and lute would be to mimic the entire cascade of chemicals that cause the goat to start labor. Lutalyse is a prostaglandin that makes the corpus luteum break down, this is what causes the ligaments and cervix to stretch and soften and start the signals to the uterus to start contracting. The dex mimics the cortisone levels rising in the doe as cortisone (cortisol) is produced by the kids and also the doe as the body is getting ready to start labor. Cortisone levels also increase blood sugar, appetite, and it stimulates surfactant in the lungs of the kids. The dex also is an anti-inflammatory, so likely the pain level of the doe is decreased and she is calmer and less stressed in the process of kidding. With how nicely the dex worked on my doe with hypocalcemia and ketosis this year, I will not hesitate to use dex on any doe that is not doing well with kidding.


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

I also used dex this year for a doe with some mild ketosis after kidding. Seemed to work well!


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

You both might want to read Sue Reiths articles in goatkeeping 101, there are several on hypocalcemia. There is really very little ketosis in dairy goats, once it gets into pregnancy toxemia/ketosis it is usually missmanaged hypocalcemia where if you don't abort the doe of the missmanaged last 50 days of pregnancy she will die with the kids in her. Most kids are born dead in true ketosis, delivered early or not. 

Learning this lesson, which really is all about calcium, has turned my herd from a herd of lutelyse, propolyn glycol, dead milkers, aborted kids, into not one kidding problem at all with metobolic disease since learning my lesson that ketosis is bunk. Keep the old ways, don't treat the dry period correctly when the kids are growing from the size of puppies to 8 pounds each, and you will continue with problem kiddings. Other than shear exhaustion, kidding season is a breeze now, lots of kids, good sized kids, does who are on the milkstand moments after kidding having colostrum milked out, kids standing and nursing off the lambar at 24 hours, problem free. Vicki


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

Thank you Vicki, I will go check it out. However, I have not had problems at all with any of my other goats, and all kids have come out properly presented, flailing, and very healthy. It was a few days after kidding that she was feeling crummy (the kidding went well and her single kid was fine...he was huge too, 10.2 lbs at birth, saanen). With this one particular doe, I am pretty sure it is because she is very very thin. She injured her back in some way when I first brought her home, and doesn't get around super well, which probably causes her to eat less. She still milks too well for me to cull her and I need the milk for now, so she will stick around until she either doesn't milk well, or stops being able to walk to and from the pasture/milking stand. I will be calling a vet that was recommended by a goat friend of mine to see if we might be able to help her, but I doubt it, since she's had this problem for many months now, and we have already tried lots of things. Anyway, I plan to milk her through for as long as she is productive since she was hard to dry up anyway, and then if she's not any better, she will probably be culled. That way she won't have to deal with another pregnancy and kidding (besides carrying extra weight cannot be good for her back). Anyway, I'm totally getting off topic on this thread, and I'm sorry for that. :blush

The info on inducing is very interesting, and something to keep in the back of my head!


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## jejarvis (Nov 11, 2009)

I agree on the issue of hypocalcemia. It is just that there is ketosis as a result of the hypocalcemia. The low calcium makes the doe weak, therefore she doesn't eat enough and get around enough, then her blood sugar is low, then her body starts breaking down her fat and then you have ketosis which throws off her chemical balance even more. With my doe that had hypocalcemia/ketosis this spring, a few things happened: she was getting pushed away from the alfalfa hay, she was skinny to begin with, she was carrying triplet bucks (who were all over 8 lbs - mini nubians), she doesn't like Tums, she would not swallow any CPMK (I didn't have injectable), and I forgot to give her BoSE 2 weeks prior to kidding. She developed "cankles" and became very weak and lethargic a few days before her due date. I thought she was just so overloaded with her big belly that she wasn't active enough. Well, I gave her the dexamethasone, and she started eating, started labor in a few hours and had 3 healthy boys. I have no doubt that the hypocalcemia started it, but CPMK was not going to turn her around. She needed massive amounts of sugar to bring her out of ketosis. I used molasses, honey, and oranges, and nutridrench to replace her sugar. She never did have any signs of hypocalcemia after kidding, even with producing lots of milk for her babies. She has since learned to like TUMs. Also- sorry to continue off- topic


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