Two more firsts with this birth as well. We noticed last night that Betty didn't seem to have any milk. That was unusual in my experience, but I wasn't too worried because I figured it was just delayed, perhaps due to the difficult birth. However her teats were still flaccid this morning. Second, she was still dragging around the placenta this morning. This is hazardous because it drastically increases the chance of a uterine infection. We've never had these issues arise before.
I ended up taking Betty into the vet this morning. He flushed her uterus with an antibiotic, gave her two injections to stimulate her to release the placenta and sent me home with a bottle of oxytocin so I could continue to medicate her for the next few days. Basically, I give her a shot in the butt twice a day.
We're keeping our fingers crossed that the oxytocin will help her milk to drop, but the vet said that that it won't do anything if she's just not producing milk. In the mean time, I picked up a bag of milk replacer, since what we had was about 5 years old and smelled noxious--I mean even more noxious than formula usually smells.
We also have the good fortune of having an extremely forward-thinking neighbor and fellow goat-keeper. Last year, he had milked out a bottle of colostrum from one of his new mommas and put it in the freezer. When he learned our situation, he generously donated his colostrum to us so that our little bucklings will have a better chance of surviving. Thank you! Thank you!