Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Hard times come again no more

There are tragedies in the caviary too. For the past 10 days I had been force feeding a pregnant sow with pregnancy toxemia (not terribly uncommon, unfortunately). She was heavy pregnant as is always the case and you could see her babies kicking in her. Four times a day I would get her out and give her a "potion" to provide some nutrients for her and the kids. On Saturday night she went into labor and with assistance delivered four pups- the first two were dead and had been for at least 12 hours. The last two were alive, but small and weak. She didn't have the energy to care for them at all. I continued to force feed her, but she died yesterday morning. The two babies I have been feeding every two hours- last feeding at 2AM. Initially they looked pretty bad, but this morning I actually have some hope that they might live. We will have a shelf naming project. I believe that they are two little sows (although, keep in mind, these small parts are indeed,, small).

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That sounds very difficult to deal with, Sheila.

schell said...

It sure does! I know I couldn't do it.

Anonymous said...

i hate it when animals die : (

jilly

Meme said...

can you name one hutch cos I know a guy called hutch and his parts are very small

UrbanStarGazer said...

Sorry to hear about your pig. :(