zombieprincess
Adult Guinea Pig
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2008
- Messages
- 1,376
- Reaction score
- 369
- Points
- 545
- Location
- Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
I suppose i should open this saying it's not all that happy, and i do talk about euthanasia, which can be touchy from some so if you don't like please don't continue.
Berry, my foster piggy gave birth on Saturday evening. 3 big pups all delivered with no consequence. She was very good from the start, got them all cleaned up then herded them under a fleece to hide them away. I wasn't at home at the time so did not see the pups until i got home late sunday night (my mum was there to look after the piggies though, and she watched the 2nd pup be born!)
Unfortunately our fears that they were a roan x roan mating proved true and two of the three were lethals, a little sow & a boar. Unfortunately both were in very bad condition,only one tiny peg of a tooth between them, completely blind, one was definitely fully deaf and both had head tilts. Two very sad little piggies, who were struggling with this world. This afternoon (after letting them spend a little while out in the sunshine on the lawn, cuddling with their mummy and sister) they were taken to a vet where the vet, nurse, myself and someone else from the shelter agreed that the kindest thing was to put the pups to sleep. If the circumstances had been different, had they had little teeth we could have worked with, if the deaf one didn't run in circles ... we would have given them a chance, i would have loved the opportunity to help a lethal piggy through it's life if it was strong enough, but the likely hood they would have survived weaning was so slim.
I am not so much upset about the pups (they were given a good send off and the vet staff were lovely with them) but i am so frustrated and angry that it should have happened in the first place, when information, education and help are so readily available if people thought to look for it sooner. Poor Berry would never had been mis-sexed and put in with her Roan dad! And she would not have had to go through the trauma of pregnancy and birth at such a tender age, just to loose two of her beautiful babies!
Thankfully her remaining baby, a cute little rexy sow with the cutest, biggest mini-pig nose! Is healthy and happy, and very much a mummy's girl
The 2 lethals having their bye-bye cuddles & portraits so they can be remembered xoxo
"Huckleberry" - the wee boar
"Cloudberry" his little sister
3 blurry siblings at 12 hrs old.
Berry, my foster piggy gave birth on Saturday evening. 3 big pups all delivered with no consequence. She was very good from the start, got them all cleaned up then herded them under a fleece to hide them away. I wasn't at home at the time so did not see the pups until i got home late sunday night (my mum was there to look after the piggies though, and she watched the 2nd pup be born!)
Unfortunately our fears that they were a roan x roan mating proved true and two of the three were lethals, a little sow & a boar. Unfortunately both were in very bad condition,only one tiny peg of a tooth between them, completely blind, one was definitely fully deaf and both had head tilts. Two very sad little piggies, who were struggling with this world. This afternoon (after letting them spend a little while out in the sunshine on the lawn, cuddling with their mummy and sister) they were taken to a vet where the vet, nurse, myself and someone else from the shelter agreed that the kindest thing was to put the pups to sleep. If the circumstances had been different, had they had little teeth we could have worked with, if the deaf one didn't run in circles ... we would have given them a chance, i would have loved the opportunity to help a lethal piggy through it's life if it was strong enough, but the likely hood they would have survived weaning was so slim.
I am not so much upset about the pups (they were given a good send off and the vet staff were lovely with them) but i am so frustrated and angry that it should have happened in the first place, when information, education and help are so readily available if people thought to look for it sooner. Poor Berry would never had been mis-sexed and put in with her Roan dad! And she would not have had to go through the trauma of pregnancy and birth at such a tender age, just to loose two of her beautiful babies!
Thankfully her remaining baby, a cute little rexy sow with the cutest, biggest mini-pig nose! Is healthy and happy, and very much a mummy's girl
The 2 lethals having their bye-bye cuddles & portraits so they can be remembered xoxo
"Huckleberry" - the wee boar
"Cloudberry" his little sister
3 blurry siblings at 12 hrs old.
