Not only is a goat placenta very different from a human or horse placenta but how it functions is also different, as well as how it should be managed after birth.
In this episode, we are talking to Dr. Jamie Stewart, Assistant Professor at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, about what the placenta does and how it functions in goats. Like all ruminant placentas, it is actually a big blanket of membranes and cotyledons, which is why it usually takes at least two hours after birth to be expelled but can take longer and is not cause for concern.
We talk about what to do in case of retained placenta, including what does not work (although it is frequently attempted) and what you should never do because it will actually make the problem worse and could even cause death.
See full show notes here >> https://thriftyhomesteader.com/goat-placenta/
To see the most recent episodes, visit ForTheLoveOfGoats.com
Thanks for listening!
No one ever said raising goats was easy, but it doesn't have to cost a fortune or drive you crazy! You just need the right information. Click here to learn more about our Goats 365 membership.
Or see my other goat courses in Thrifty Homesteader Academy.
Not only is a goat placenta very different from a human or horse placenta but how it functions is also different, as well as how it should be managed after birth.
In this episode, we are talking to Dr. Jamie Stewart, Assistant Professor at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, about what the placenta does and how it functions in goats. Like all ruminant placentas, it is actually a big blanket of membranes and cotyledons, which is why it usually takes at least two hours after birth to be expelled but can take longer and is not cause for concern.
We talk about what to do in case of retained placenta, including what does not work (although it is frequently attempted) and what you should never do because it will actually make the problem worse and could even cause death.
See full show notes here >> https://thriftyhomesteader.com/goat-placenta/
To see the most recent episodes, visit ForTheLoveOfGoats.com
Thanks for listening!
No one ever said raising goats was easy, but it doesn't have to cost a fortune or drive you crazy! You just need the right information. Click here to learn more about our Goats 365 membership.
Or see my other goat courses in Thrifty Homesteader Academy.
Introduction 0:03
For the love of goats! We are talking about everything goat. Whether you're a goat owner, a breeder, or just a fan of these wonderful creatures, we've got you covered. And now, here is Deborah Niemann.
Deborah Niemann 0:19
Hello, everyone, and welcome to today's episode! This is an episode that I'm very excited to bring to you, because I get a lot of questions from people on social media, and in messages and stuff, and in my courses that make it pretty obvious that they're not real clear on what the placenta does, as well as how they should handle the placenta after the kids are born. And so, today, we are joined by Dr. Jamie Stewart. She is an Assistant Professor at the Virginia Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine. Welcome back to the show today, Dr. Stewart!
Jamie Stewart 0:51
Thank you for having me again.
Deborah Niemann 0:53
This is gonna be really fun today, because we're going to talk about some stuff that people don't really think about much until they're worried. I know sometimes I've gotten emails from people, or questions from people, talking about a birth and really panicking once the water breaks. And, I honestly don't know what the connection is with them, but they worry that once the water breaks that the kid is gonna drown or suffocate or something, and like, they've gotta get the kid out as quickly as possible, because they don't realize the role that the placenta plays in getting oxygen to that kid. And so, let's just start with the very basics on the placenta and what it does for the kids. There's one placenta feeding all the kids in there. Just tell us what it does in a goat or other ruminant.
Jamie Stewart 1:37
Yeah. And, if anybody's ever looked at the placenta after it's come out, they'll notice that there's a bunch of little... They should be pink to red bumps that are on there. And so, those are the placentomes. The placentome is made up of two different sides. So, the caruncle, which is the side that stays in the female, and the cotyledon, which is the fetal side that we would see coming out, and all of that together makes up the placentome. And, where those are, and that's where the fetal side directly connects to the mom's side.
Jamie Stewart 2:07
So, through those little placentome units that form in there during early pregnancy, that's where all the nutrients, and all the oxygen, and everything from the mom that is sustaining that fetus and letting it grow, that's how it gets transferred, is through those little placentomes—or, I guess, you're seeing cotyledons on the outside. But, through that whole unit. So, that's where all of that's coming from. It's very important. And, they'll grow in size throughout pregnancy to help with sustaining that pregnancy. And so, you'll see them of differing sizes, but most of the time, depending on the size of your goat, you know, they'll be anywhere from the size of a half-dollar to a little bit bigger than that; they're not very big in the goats. But, you'll see some varying sizes of them, and that's normal.
Deborah Niemann 2:56
Yeah. And also, the number of the cotyledons... In my book, actually, I quoted a vet textbook that says there's, I think, 70 to 140 cotyledons on a placenta. And, it never occurred to me, and I kind of thought, "Oh, I guess 70 in a Nigerian and 140 in a big goat?" But, I've counted mine before, and usually, it's less; it's, like, around 50 or so. So, you see a little less. That's not a big deal, either. But, it's very different. Like, different mammals have different kinds of placentas, and they also work differently. So, it's very different from a human placenta, which just looks like a big piece of liver. So, how does the ruminant placenta function differently than, say, like, a human placenta or a horse placenta?
Jamie Stewart 3:40
That's a really good question. And, that actually feeds back into why we're so worried about getting colostrum into our small ruminants versus humans, where we don't worry too much about it. And so, in humans, there's actually only pretty much two layers between the fetal blood supply and the mom's blood supply. So, the fetal blood supply is almost in direct contact with the mom's blood supply. So, all of the antibodies that the mom gets throughout pregnancy and everything that she's exposed to in the human is going to directly transfer to that fetus. And, that's why things like maternal alcohol syndrome is such a big deal in humans, because there's such close contact to those blood supplies.
Jamie Stewart 4:21
Whereas, if we go to the ruminant, the horse, most of our domestic species on the farm animal side, they have about six layers between the fetal side and the maternal side. And so, there's a lot of layers that antibodies and nutrients and everything have to get through. So, we don't get a lot of antibody transfer that goes directly from the mom to the fetus, and that's why, when they're delivered, they don't have a massive supply of antibodies like human babies do. And so, that's why it's so important to get good quality colostrum into them, because that's how they get that original influx of antibodies that they need to protect themselves until they start creating their own.
Jamie Stewart 4:59
But then, even within the ruminants, there are some differences between them. Even though they have the same number of layers, where I talked about all those little placentome units that form within the fetus of our ruminants—including our goats—the horses, they don't have all of those. So, everything is in direct contact. So, if you ever see a mare placenta, they don't have all those little buttons. It's just basically every single inch—besides a few areas that don't have any attachment layers. Essentially, the entire uterus is attached from the female to the baby. So, they have a lot greater surface area for transfer of oxygen and nutrients than our ruminants, where they are just attached to those specific sites. And, I guess where that comes into interest is when we think about different things that cause infection, things that we're going to be looking at when they're passing the placenta and when we get concerned about the placenta passing, which I think we're going to cover throughout here today.
Deborah Niemann 5:54
Yeah. So, let's go ahead and talk about, after the kids are born, the placenta is going to come out in two to four hours. And, in fact, it's not even considered retained, according to Goat Medicine, until it's after 12 hours. So, can you talk a little bit about the whole process of the placenta coming out and how that works?
Jamie Stewart 6:15
Yeah. So, compared to the horse, because the placenta is only attached to those certain sites, it is very, very tightly adhered. So, that's why, if you ever talk to a veterinarian and you're worried about that placenta that's still in there, and you want to tug on it to try to get it out, don't do that. That's actually going to make things worse, especially if you're going to try to breed them back in the future, because it can cause some damage. Because, not only does she need to expel that placenta, but she needs to go through a whole cascade of immune factors, and antiprotein factors. So, what we call proteolytic, or things that lyse all those proteins in there, all these factors need to start getting released, too.
Jamie Stewart 6:57
So, if you think of it, they're all attached like this, and we need something that's going to come in and loosen those attachments. And, once they're loose, then she'll continue to have some of those uterine contractions, and it'll force that apart and force it out when it's ready. Whereas, if we're sitting there pulling it, we can cause some damage to that uterine side where it's attached to. So, we want to be very careful about that. And certainly, when we have things like dystocia, or if we've had to induce them for whatever reason, they tend to be at an increased risk for getting the retained placenta, where it's in for greater than 12 hours. And, even during those periods, we don't go in try to physically remove it.
Jamie Stewart 7:35
We were talking about this before the show, that a lot of people with goats are horse owners that have kind of converted over. So, you know, you know in the horse that you need to get that placenta out of the uterus as soon as possible. But, in the goats, they're not quite as sensitive. So, they don't seem to develop severe systemic infections as quickly as in the horse. But also, the horse doesn't have a lot of that really tightly adhered areas like the goats do when you're trying to remove it, so you can be a little more aggressive with the horses than with any of our ruminant species. So, a lot of times, even if they are retained, we kind of let it sit in there, because it's going to start naturally breaking it down over time, and then we can lightly pull on it to see if it's coming out. Especially if she's, you know, a couple of days out, then she's not going to have those nice uterine contractions to push it out. So, we can kind of check it each day. But then, we also want to make sure that we're checking rectal temperatures, appetite, things like that, to make sure that she's eating and not getting a temperature, because she will be at risk, then, for developing a metritis, which is just the fancy word for a uterine infection.
Deborah Niemann 8:40
Yeah, exactly. So, like, we're at around 750 kids born and around 250 lambs. And, I've had, like, one retained placenta in a sheep and three in a goat. So that's, like, one out of about 250. So, not terribly common, but it does happen. And, they all kind of... Well, the first two really played out differently. Because, the first one was with the ewe. And, the vet... I called the local vet, and she said, "Oh, come over. I'll give you a shot of oxytocin you can give her." So, I went and I got it, and I got one shot of oxytocin, and she passed the placenta a week later. And, the vet said, "You know, well, just give her a shot of penicillin every day until she passes it," when nothing happened from the shot of oxytocin.
Deborah Niemann 9:22
The first time I had to goat with a retained placenta, it was a different vet, and knew a little bit more, and said, "Oxytocin is very short-acting. I'll give you four syringes. Give her an injection every 30 minutes, and that should get her to come out." So I did, and nothing happened. And, you know, then she said, "You know, you can just watch her for signs of infection." So, I was checking her temperature regularly, watching her, and in that case, the placenta passed, like, two or three days later. She did not get any kind of an infection or anything. Everything was good.
Deborah Niemann 9:53
And, at that point, too—because, like, in both the first and second case, I called the university when nothing happened after the oxytocin injections. And, whoever I talked to said, "Yeah, that doesn't usually work. Just make sure she doesn't, you know, show signs of infection." So, I was like, "Okay." So, but by the time it happened that third time, I was like, "I got this. I'm just gonna watch her for signs of infection." Nothing happened. She passed it after two or three days. The fourth time, I went out there, like, on Day Two, and the kids were running around screaming, the doe was laying in the corner, she was like, "I don't want to eat. Get these kids away from me." And I was like, "Oh, my gosh!" I took her temperature; she had a temperature. So, I started treating her at that point for an infection. And, the placenta passed, like, about four days later, and she was totally fine.
Deborah Niemann 10:43
Like, I guess those are, like, four different possibilities of how it can play out. But really, the bottom line is kind of what you said about just watching and making sure that they don't get an infection. And, if they do, to treat them for the infection. Is there anything else that people should know about how that can play out?
Jamie Stewart 11:01
It's just like you described it; they all seem to respond differently. So, it's just monitoring the individual animal, because some do just fine, and they'll pass it a week later, without, you know, so much as breaking a sweat. And, some of them, you know, it'll be two days later, and they'll suddenly, you know, have a 105 degree fever, and, you know, you need to do something. And so, it's just monitoring, because the individual animal variation is quite big. And, the oxytocin thing: The closer you are to when they gave birth, the more likely that that's going to have some effect. But, as I was talking about, the oxytocin doesn't do anything to break those adhesions between there. All it does is it promotes the pushing motion from the uterus. So, if for whatever reason, they didn't get the whole cascade to break apart those adhesions, the oxytocin itself is not going to do anything. So, you just have to give it some time to let those down. So, if you've had it where the oxytocin has worked, it's usually probably a nice little tug on the placenta would have helped to have it come out of the uterus, also.
Deborah Niemann 11:57
Okay. So, are you saying that, in that case, you should pull on it, or no?
Jamie Stewart 12:02
Just a light tug. Again, if you just kind of reach up there, and you just give it a like a little light tug, and it comes out really easily? Then those are okay. If you have to do anything more than just a little, like, you know, like you're shaking hands with a toddler kind of tug? If you have to do anything more than that, then definitely leave it alone.
Deborah Niemann 12:20
Okay. One of the other really great tips I got from one of the vets I talked to when I called U of I, was that if it's retained, she said, "Like, you know, if you've got a plastic newspaper sleeve"—because it's gonna be hanging out, and the doe is probably gonna be dragging it behind her. And, if it's fly season, the flies are just gonna be going crazy and laying eggs and all kinds of things you don't want. So, if you've got any kind of a long piece of plastic that you can put that placenta in, and then tie it in a knot so that it's not going to attract flies. Are there any other little tips like that that people should know?
Jamie Stewart 12:56
Yeah. I mean, the whole putting it in the knot, too, is really good, because that knot, like, creates a little bit of tension there. So again, if you know she's not having those nice little uterine contractions, that'll be enough to, like, help it kind of fall out. So, I do like that. And, some people will talk about giving things like Lutalyse or ESTRAMATE. But, the receptors for those specific things are not present at this time, because she just gave birth. So, all the receptors have gone away. So, really, you're just kind of wasting some drug by giving that. It's not going to hurt anything, but it's just not going to really do anything.
Jamie Stewart 13:29
So, yeah, really, it's just checking her. And again, you can check by just kind of either doing the knot, or you can do the little light tug. And, if it's coming, great. If it's not, then leave it alone. If she is getting sick, I really would recommend calling a vet. Because sometimes, what happens is, if they get just a ton of fluid in there with the metritis, sometimes it will help to be able to lavage some of that fluid out. But, I really recommend letting a vet do it, because the uterus of the goat is really thin, and they're very prone to rupturing their uterus. So, it's not something I would recommend just doing at home, especially if you're not, you know, well-seasoned with anything like that. So, those are different things that your vet can help you with, too.
Deborah Niemann 14:08
One of the things we talked about before we started recording was a goat that I had who kidded up about four or five years ago, and she had four kids. One was born dead. And then, when the placenta came out, some of the cotyledons were gray instead of that lovely, dark-purple, you know, red, pink color that you normally see. And, I assumed like, "Oh, that's where the dead kid must have been attached," because, like, that is not normal. So, the kid was, like, not getting the nutrients and everything and the oxygen that he needed to continue living. What causes that?
Jamie Stewart 14:43
So, there can be different things that cause it. So, in a situation like that, when she started into labor, that one probably detached the soonest. And so, the baby probably just wasn't getting a whole lot of oxygen from the get-go, and if he was in the back of the line, then it was just, you know, too long before anything happened. And that seems to be more common when you have, you know, three or four babies that something like that could happen, because there's just so many attachments in there. And, if that's the side that starts to detach first, and that baby is last in line, then that could be an issue.
Jamie Stewart 15:19
Other things that could cause it—and we talked about this a little bit at one of the other podcasts I was in—especially with abortions, is you can have something called a "placentitis," where that's just inflammation of the placenta. So, we hear about it a lot more in mares, because, you know, we diagnose it a lot more in them during labor and treat it a lot more, because it's very common in them because of their placentation type. And, it's not really something we can easily diagnose before they give birth in the ruminants, because of how their placentation is. So, in one like that, you know, you might have had some placentitis in those sides, and it can be caused from anything like an infection, it could be if she's come into contact with any abortifacients, or any of those things that we talked about in the previous podcast that would cause abortion—so chlamydia, Campylobacter.
Jamie Stewart 16:12
Usually with some like those, you'll see it kind of disseminated throughout. So, if you have really weak lamb or kids that are born, or if you have, you know, stillborns, definitely take a look at the placenta—and always wear gloves. Because, a lot of those are zoonotic. Always gotta put that plug in. But, especially if you think that the cotyledons, which are usually a nice pink-to-red color, if they look yellowish to grayish, then you definitely want to be concerned. Definitely save it. Put it in a bag. If you have any stillborns, put that in a bag, too. Put it in the fridge and call your vet. And, because if you end up having problems, then you probably want to submit those to try to get a diagnosis, and keeping that placenta is really important for getting those kinds of diagnostics done.
Jamie Stewart 16:12
Yeah. I remember, I went to an ADGA conference back in 2011, and there was a pathologist there who said that he tells his students, "Placenta, placenta placenta" to drill into them the importance of getting the placenta before doing a necropsy on stillborn kids, because the answer is frequently in the placenta.
Deborah Niemann 17:16
So, in the case of, like, the discolored cotyledons, if the whole placenta was stinky, is that more likely to be an infection than just a premature separation?
Jamie Stewart 17:26
Yes.
Deborah Niemann 17:27
Okay. Because, it was stinky. I mean, normally, I let my does eat their placentas, but I was there when it passed, and I'm like, "Oh, my God, you are not eating this." And, I picked it up and put it in a plastic bag.
Jamie Stewart 17:38
And, that could also depend when the separation occurred. So, it could occur, and then it could become infected in there because it's separated. And, that's a beautiful site for Clostridium to produce, especially when there's no air—you know, no oxygen—in that area. So, it doesn't necessarily mean that had to have been... You know, it's a "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" there. Did it detach and then, you know, some Clostridium overgrowth happened? Or, did she get some kind of infection that traveled down there and only infected that one side? It's hard to know, you know, without doing a culture or something on that tissue. But, I would say, yeah, like, there's definitely some kind of infection in there. But, I wouldn't be super concerned that it was the cause.
Deborah Niemann 18:21
Yeah, exactly. And, I always telling people, "If you really want to know why you have a dead goat, you need to get a necropsy." Because, otherwise, we're just all guessing.
Jamie Stewart 18:31
The other thing that I was thinking of is, you know, people ask about how many placentas should be passed. You know, everybody always expects multiple placentas per baby. And, the the truth is, there's actually different parts of the placenta. So, you've got the entire placenta that kind of makes up, you know, the entirety of the uterus. And then, there's the amnion that covers the baby. And so, the amnion usually breaks as the baby's coming out. And, those are what we think of as, like, the sacks, and you can see multiples of those. And, it's going to depend on how the pregnancy went along. You don't always have to have multiple placentas pass per baby. If it was, you know, twins because an egg split, that's all going to be in one placenta. So, it's common to know, because I hear this question, a lot of people wanting to know, you know, "I waited for another placenta to pass, and it never did." Well, that's because she only had the one to pass. So, don't freak out too much about the numbers that pass out—or sometimes it breaks and, you know, that passes out in different pieces. So, that part, I don't worry too much about, because that can vary quite a bit.
Jamie Stewart 18:31
Yeah. I've never seen more than one placenta—and we just had a girl that had six last week. And, you know, like, she had six kids, and then a placenta came out a couple of hours later. She was very efficient with the whole thing. And then, somebody recently contacted me and said she thought her goad had had two placentas, and I'm like, "Oh, do you have a picture?" Because, my theory has always been that the placenta tears. And she's like, "Yeah, I took pictures." And so, she sent me pictures, and I was counting the—it was a Nigerian Dwarf—and I'm counting the cotyledons, and each piece had about 25 cotyledons. And I'm like, "Okay, I usually count around 50 cotyledons on my Nigerian Dwarf placentas. So, there's a total of 50 here between these two pieces that you have." I mean, it does look like two, but the number of cotyledons is what I would expect to find in a single placenta. So.
Jamie Stewart 20:32
Mm-hmm.
Deborah Niemann 20:32
The big thing, I think, sometimes, is that people freak out. Like, they're like, "Well, the placenta passed"—and especially this is with new people. If they've never seen a goat give birth before, I've seen people freak out, thinking like, "Oh, there's another kid!" And it's like, "Well, did she pass the placenta." If she passed the placenta, she's probably done. Because, that's usually the last thing that comes out. And, it comes out so much later, you know, like, two to four hours after the last kid is born.
Jamie Stewart 21:00
I guess one of the other things that we talked about was regarding during the kidding process, we talked about how that placenta is the major source of oxygen for those kids. And, there's so many people that, as soon as, you know, that water breaks—which, the water is just the beginning of that placenta coming out. And it breaks, and all that fluid is there, and it lubricates the tract so that the baby can come out. And, during that time, the placenta is still attached to the uterus. So, all of those little buttons are still tightly adhered, and the fetus still has its umbilicus attached to that placenta, so the fetus is still getting oxygen from the placenta at that point. And, that's why the placenta doesn't detach until after the fetus is delivered.
Jamie Stewart 21:44
So, once that water breaks, there doesn't need to be a huge hurry. We always say "the rule of 30 minutes." So, every 30 minutes, something new should be happening. That doesn't mean that the baby is on the ground in 30 minutes. If it is, that's great! And, usually in older animals, that is the case. But, you know, if it's a younger animal, it might be a little bit longer. But, in 30 minutes, you know, you should see at least the baby starting to come out, and then 30 minutes after that, maybe you see, like, the head and feet are coming out. And, at that point, you know, if you're around, you can help to pull it out. But, you actually don't want to go in too early right after the water breaks to try to pull it out. Because, especially in a young female, she needs time to let her reproductive tract stretch so that that baby can come out more easily. By trying to go in and pull things out too easily, she hasn't had the time to let her tract to completely open up. So, don't get too too freaked out, because the baby is still getting oxygen.
Jamie Stewart 22:36
The one time that we do say to work a little bit quickly is if the baby's coming backwards and you have to pull it backwards. So, if you see those back feet coming out... You know, when you see the back feet and a butt coming out, I would absolutely run in and grab it and pull it, because from that point, as soon as that baby is up in the pelvis, that umbilicus gets compressed in the pelvis, and now its head is on the inside of the female. And, those are usually pretty easy, because you just grab them by the back legs and you just pull it out. And, those usually come out pretty easily. And so, those are the ones that I would say work a little bit more quickly on, just because of the way it works. But, when they're coming out headfirst, that's the natural way of it coming. So, the head comes out as the umbilicus is compressing into that pelvis, and so you know, as the baby's head comes out, it starts getting exposed to oxygen. And usually, by the time, you know, it hits the ground, like, it gets that kind of thump and stimulation to start breathing.
Deborah Niemann 23:29
Yeah. I remember when we had our very first C-section, the goat started pushing around 5:00 or 6:00 o'clock in the morning. And, it was obvious things were not happening. And, I called the university and talked to one of the professors there for a bit, and waited a little longer, and finally went in. It's a two-hour drive for us. And, she had four kids, and three of them were delivered live by C-section, six hours after she started pushing. And, the other one had clearly been dead for quite some time and was actually the one in the cervix gumming up the works and slowing everything down. And, I remember the surgeon who did the C-section said, "You're so lucky this isn't a horse." Because, once the goat does start pushing, that starts a timer in terms of, like, when the placenta is going to separate. But, it's a lot longer with a goat than it is with a horse. I've had three C-sections, and every time I went in, they said to me, "You're so lucky this isn't a horse." So, it gives me the feeling that horses are a lot more delicate when it comes to the whole birthing situation.
Jamie Stewart 24:42
Yeah. You have about 30 minutes in horses to get that foal out before it's severely compromised—like, its life is severely compromised. So, we definitely have the luxury of a lot more time with our ruminant species.
Deborah Niemann 24:56
Wow! No wonder horse people panic so quickly! Because, with horses, there's reason to panic. But yeah, with goats, you really do have a lot of time and that... You know, it's funny that, like, our first C-section was the thing that made me just completely chill. Like, "Oh, she's having trouble. Okay, let me think about this." Rather than feeling all panicky, like, "Oh my gosh! I have to do something right this second!" And, it's like this one person said once at an ADGA conference, she's like, "As long as the kid is inside, everything's fine." It's getting everything it needs from the placenta. So, just relax. You know, call the vet; chat with them. Call your mentor; chat with them. You know, you've got time to think about what to do if you think something is not going the way that it should. There's nothing urgent, you know, with the goat.
Deborah Niemann 25:42
So, is there anything else that people need to know about goat placentas in particular? How that might be different from any other animals they may have had experience with?
Jamie Stewart 25:50
I mean, the big thing, especially, you know, with a lot of horse people that have migrated over to having goats, also, is just, you don't have to be quite as concerned when it's retained. You don't have to be quite as concerned about the timing for the baby to come out. So, it's kind of, in general, any of our ruminant species, you've got a little bit of time to work with it. You know, we don't routinely talk about evaluating the goat placenta, but I think it's useful to at least, you know, look at it and look at some normal ones, because then, if you have a kid that comes out dead... You know, like what you did. You noticed that there was a whole area of cotyledons that looked abnormal. You know, you can always snap a picture of it and take it to your vet. And again, put it in a bag and put it in the fridge. And, you know, if it ends up being a problem, then you have that information to, you know, at least do a culture, you know, do some kind of tests, you know, give you time to talk with your vet about it. So, I think those are the big things.
Jamie Stewart 25:51
And again. I'll mention it again: Always wear gloves when you're handling the placenta—especially if you're suspecting that there might be something wrong with it.
Jamie Stewart 26:12
Yeah, exactly. That's a really good tip. Always wear gloves. And, do not do mouth-to-mouth on a baby goat that was just born. Like, we talked about that last time. If you don't know why, go listen to the episode that Dr. Stewart did on infectious causes of abortion in goats, because some of them are zoonotic, and you don't want any of those diseases.
Jamie Stewart 27:12
Many of them are zoonotic.
Deborah Niemann 27:14
Yes. Well, thank you so much for joining us today! I hope that this really helps people a lot in terms of relaxing—especially our horse owners who are new to goats.
Deborah Niemann 27:25
And that's it for today's show. If you haven't already done so, be sure to hit the "subscribe" button so that you don't miss any episodes. To see show notes, you can always visit ForTheLoveOfGoats.com, and you can follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/LoveGoatsPodcast. See you again next time. Bye for now!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai