# Warning, extremely graphic photo... of Gastroschisis



## Guest (Mar 3, 2011)

Not sure if this is the proper term for goats, but its called Gastroschisis in humans, this baby goat was born at a friends home last night and it was alive for about 8 minutes and was breathing.. She was born with all her insides on the outside and her legs were backwards. Thought maybe some of you would like to see this.. My vet did say this happens in animals occasionally and reasons are unknown.

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## DostThouHaveMilk (Oct 25, 2007)

Blech.
Were there other kids with her?


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## MysticHollowGoats (Nov 5, 2007)

Wow, the things nature can do :/


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## Faithful Crown Nubians (Dec 5, 2007)

WOW That is....weird.....and I dont know what else to say. I'm thankful I haven't seen that in person! Wow.


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## tendermeadowsnigerians (Sep 8, 2010)

Wow........nature does funny things sometimes.


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## mathewsfive (May 2, 2010)

I am so glad that didn't happen here!!!! Was it term or early?? Was this a FF that had this?


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

That's terrible. :down


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## Lynn_Theesfeld (Feb 21, 2010)

Poor baby, it actually looks like a calf I had to help pull years ago. Without going into gross details- the calf wasn't "born" like that.


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## Guest (Mar 3, 2011)

It was a full term doeling and she was one of triplets and they are alive and doing fine... 
Barb


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

Wow. That's awful. I have to say, that just might give me nightmares.


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## Caprine Beings (Sep 19, 2008)

Thank you Barb for this informative (slightly disturbing) photo.
It will be a good thing to add to 101 for reference.
Tam


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## VickiLynne (Feb 8, 2008)

Thanks for sharing this photo. Glad the others were ok. I have seen this happen to a human baby. Very tragic.

Vicki in NC


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## LaManchaLady (Feb 5, 2011)

Poor baby :down

There is an older gentleman that lives about 10 miles from us that called me 2 years ago to come help him with a doe that was kidding and had a buckling born with his insides on the outside. It broke my heart.


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## prairiegirl01 (Jun 2, 2008)

So sorry. It makes you appreciate all the times it goes the way it's supposed to.

Chris


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## grandmajo (May 22, 2008)

So sorry, it must have been very hard for your friend to have the poor thing born alive and know you couldn't help it. So sad


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## catdance62 (Mar 2, 2009)

Wow. I have heard of that in humans, but I guess it could happen in all mammals.


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## Legend Hills (May 29, 2008)

That was very educational. Thank you for sharing. Poor thing.


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## Leo (Mar 10, 2008)

eheww, reminds me of some bald hamsters i tried to breed when younger, but the whole litter was like that.


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## goatkid (Oct 26, 2007)

My friend had a kid born with it's intestines on the outside. I didn't see it, but she put it down immediately. A few years ago, she had another kid born with one of her legs backward like that, but no other apparant defects. I got to see that one. We put it down, too because it would not be able to walk.


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## Bernice (Apr 2, 2009)

At our last goat club meeting the vet doing the presentation mentioned this, it is rare, but in her case it was a calf.


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## lonestrchic23 (Jan 7, 2011)

Oh my gosh that's horrible!

I hope I never encounter such a thing


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Crystal you will. It's why everyone has to be prepared in their minds for how they will cope and what will they do with kids born like this and worse or even such severe parrot mouth there is no bottom jaw. How will you dispose of them and all the placentas on your farms? It's all part of choosing to breed livestock. I have delivered a cyclops, a kid with their back legs bent the wrong way, fuzed doelings (two heads, two front legs, two back legs with two immature back legs) and slurry kids (being absorbed by the doe) and mummies (which are kids that have been absorbed except for their hide and small bones) it's a tiny walnut sized leather purse that you can find bones and such in if you pry it open while it is still wet. We had one kid in formaldhyde, from the high school, in a mason jar..a perfectly formed full term kid who was so small it fit into a quart mason jar, it never could catch a breath when born and died trying to gasp for air. Vicki


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## peregrine (Dec 9, 2008)

Gah! This kind of stuff just doesnt make sense.


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2011)

Like Vicki said, you should be prepared to deal with something like this... My friend was in shock and did not know what to do until her hubby got there.. She actually let it live because she was so shocked when this kid was born, she told me it was breathing for at least 8 minutes and while that doesn't sound like a long time, I bet it stretched out for her.. I would have put it down immediately and while I have never had it happen here (yet) have seen a couple of them and enough pictures I know it can happen.. She did not because she is new to goats and just wasn't expecting anything to happen.. except picture perfect.. 
Barb


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## kmorisett (Oct 17, 2010)

What is the quickest, best method for putting down a kid that needs to be?


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## cmeyer1 (Apr 21, 2010)

Wow, did not know this could happen. Poor baby. Death was a blessing in this case.


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## hyamiranda (Jul 24, 2009)

Nature is amazing in all its forms.


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## mrs.h (Feb 1, 2010)

kmorisett said:


> What is the quickest, best method for putting down a kid that needs to be?


What she said..


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Keep a disposable scalpel in your kidding kit, cut the jugular and let the kid bleed out.
Shoot the kid in the head.
Drown the kid, two 5 gallons buckets filled with water, put the kid head first into a full one and then put a full one over the top to weigh the kid down.


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## BlueRose (Feb 2, 2011)

shooting a kid in the back of the head is the most humane way to do it besides using a vet.

cutting the neck takes a few minutes and is very messy.

drowning is the least humane way. I do not advise that.terrible.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Kara what is humane to one is not to another, death is death. And very honestly cutting a jugular (not hacking up the neck) is quick and it doesn't upset the herd in the barn. I can cut a jugular and have a kid bleed out in my hay barn with people visiting the milk room and nobody knows what has happened. Filling the lungs with blood or water is still death.

When forum members ask questions, they get the answers no matter how personally distasteful I may think it is, or more importantly how distasteful it is to someone else. It's simply an answer. If you have another answer than post it, but don't critique facts with opinion that isn't helpful. Nobody WANTS to do any of this, and I would hope none of my forum members would take a kid like this to the vet and pay for euthanasia, it's costly and unnecessary. We have to become self sufficient, and with the economy going to get much much worse it's more important than ever to learn basic husbandry skills.


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## BlueRose (Feb 2, 2011)

When I was a kid I fell in a swimming pool and almost died..I blacked out under the water. I will say it was the most terrifying and painful thing ive had happen to me so far. I just believe in a humane way to put animals down without the use of a vet.but okay ill be quiet now and lurk.


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

I personally agree on the drowning thing, I would bash it with a rock before I would do that. Just being candid. I have had to hit a couple things in the head before, a chicken and a baby rabbit. Oh I hated it so much. But they were suffering.

I would think cutting the jugular would be one of the best ways. It doesn't hurt to bleed out. They say you just get sleepy and go to sleep and that's that.


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## BlueRose (Feb 2, 2011)

true. hitting something over the back of the animal is also quick. Been there done that with rabbits. Also broke necks...but idk how easy that would be able to do with a goat.


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## peregrine (Dec 9, 2008)

I wouls cut the jugular with a sharp scalpel. That does not cause any pain and bleeding out is painless. Shooting would be my next choice. Then bashing with a rock. I had to kill a suffering injured duck by suffocating it, a long time ago when I had no scalpel or rock to hit it with, it was horrible. Suffocation thru drowning seems unnecessarily painful when a scalpel is the easiest and most human of choices. Kosher slaughter is done with an extremely sharp blade, we can all attest to a razor's painless cut....I have killed many turkeys and chickens for the table by cutting the jugular, they basically fall asleep. There are online sources of AVMA recommended methods for euthanasia in the absence of injectible euthanasia solutions--try to stay close to thier recommendations and you will be least likely to cause pain. Personally I hate CO2 or anything resembling suffocation, I wouldnt want to die that way, too much struggle...


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## Dana (Dec 7, 2009)

Okay, I'm not sure what I'd do. But I agree with Vicki and that we need to prepare for this kind of situation. It's got me thinking what I will bring out to the barn if I had to do it. If hubby isn't home and I need to do it alone, I think a scalpel sounds the most painless. If hubby was home he'd shoot it for me. 

Oh this is stressful...


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## Ozark Lady (Mar 21, 2010)

Ick! I would really hate to see something like this!

I have delivered bad kids, that had died and bloated inside, and were just soft and yucky, nothing like this.

One day, I came home from church, hubby was out of town, and a dog had been into my rabbits, I had torn up babies everywhere and they were alive, suffering and screaming. In tears, I just got the .22 and made as clean of a shot as possible. Sometimes, we have to do terrible things to be kind.

I don't know which amazed me most, the insides on the outside, or the backwards legs, but hard to imagine both on the same animal. Poor baby!

Glad the other kids were okay. It was not a total loss for the mother goat nor the owners.


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## lonestrchic23 (Jan 7, 2011)

Vicki McGaugh Tx Nubians said:


> Crystal you will. It's why everyone has to be prepared in their minds for how they will cope and what will they do with kids born like this and worse or even such severe parrot mouth there is no bottom jaw. How will you dispose of them and all the placentas on your farms? It's all part of choosing to breed livestock. I have delivered a cyclops, a kid with their back legs bent the wrong way, fuzed doelings (two heads, two front legs, two back legs with two immature back legs) and slurry kids (being absorbed by the doe) and mummies (which are kids that have been absorbed except for their hide and small bones) it's a tiny walnut sized leather purse that you can find bones and such in if you pry it open while it is still wet. We had one kid in formaldhyde, from the high school, in a mason jar..a perfectly formed full term kid who was so small it fit into a quart mason jar, it never could catch a breath when born and died trying to gasp for air. Vicki


Oh knowing my luck I'm sure I will, but one can hope right? At the very least I hope whatever problems I do encounter along the way won't be as grotesque.

Worst thing I ever had to do was pull a calf out in pieces....it had died and been dead a while and when the head and front feet came out I was told to grab the legs and pull...imagine my shock when I completly pulled the legs out, not connected to the body & landed flat on my butt on the barn floor holding these leg pieces..... Ick! I was 15 @ the time.....The rest of the calf was pulled out piece by piece, my Ag teacher did some sort of flush on her, had the vet come out, and put her on anti-biotics....and after 2 days we lost the cow too.....Not a great experience to say the least..

Have delivered mummy puppies before...creepy looking, but they didn't come out alive so its not so bad...

You ever see those Ripleys shows or Weird, True & Freaky on Animal Planet about mutated animals? One episode I saw had a two headed piglet with only one large shared eye between both heads, no bottom jaw and a cleft palet......most disgusting, miserable looking critter I ever saw....they tried to save it, had it in the news and everything and after about a week it finally died basically from starvation....but everyone was applauding their efforts to save it! To me, they only prolonged its suffering and gave it a miserable short life. A bullet at birth would have been better...

I'm positive at some point in this venture I'll be faced with some sort of awful, and if so we have a backup plan, but I'm hoping nature will be kind and let me get a few years under my belt before it starts throwing curve balls at me (probably wishful thinking on my part, but once again.....one can hope!)


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## Ozark Lady (Mar 21, 2010)

I think often sheer numbers will affect how soon you run into this.
Not always though! But, the more animals you have, and the more years you raise animals, the greater your chances of running into something like this.

If you have 1-2 does versus 100 does, and you raise animals for 10 years, think of how many births that will be... bound to increase your chances for something to go wrong.

Don't panic yet, I have had goats since 1984, and haven't encountered anything like this... so you just have to remember... normal births is normal! It is good to know that things like this can happen, but please don't gear up thinking it will be like every 10th kidding or something. It could happen on your very first kidding, or you could go a lifetime and never see this.
Just don't approach every kidding in fear of something like this awaiting you.

You are much more likely to have less traumatic defects in kids. So, you do need to really look over your healthy kids too.
I had a doe with 4 teats, they looked funky, but they all worked and she was a great milker, if not particularly pretty! And she never had any issues of falling udder etc. Not one of her daughters had the 4 teats either.


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## mrs.h (Feb 1, 2010)

Thank you Vicki.


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