• Discussions taking place within this forum are intended for the purpose of assisting you in discussing options with your vet. Any other use of advice given here is done so at your risk, is solely your responsibility and not that of this forum or its owner. Before posting it is your responsibility you abide by this Statement

Urgent advice needed pls...

Status
Not open for further replies.
MarthaAndMaud

MarthaAndMaud

Joined
Mar 11, 2008
Messages
889
Reaction score
1
Points
0
Location
Norwich, Norfolk
Hannah, the mum to 6 healthy bubs who were born on the 11th has mastitis. We have caught it early and she has been given baytril and and anti-inflammatory injection.

Nothing comes from the hard lump that has appeared.

However, there appears to be no milk being produced as a result and the babies are chewing on the other teat to find some. Hanhan is very sore indeed.

She has been prescribed baytril and metacam but I am concerned about giving her these just incase bubs are getting even just a little milk from her.

Should I take the babies away and feed them goats milk for the next couple of weeks?

Mastitis is new to me...please can I have some advice.

Many thanks
Claire
 
i have no idea. but my sis had this after her baby and they both had to have medication. hope that helps. i guess it wont though.
 
I don't have experience of this Claire, I am sure someone better equipped to advise will be along shortly, but from what I have come across, you shouldn't need to remove the babies, but you will need to feed them until you know Hannah is producing milk again. Complan is recommended for unweaned babies, dripped or fed on a teaspoon - not sure about how good goats milk is.

Poor Hannah, hope this clears up soon!
 
Thank you. They have been given complan for the last few days as we knew Hannah was struggling to give them all a fair feed. I don't know how long Complan can be used for though and poor hannah herself won't touch it.
 
I fed the last litters of babies here with goat's milk or lactol with no adverse side effects when they weren't getting enough milk from mum. I expect with such a large litter she's probably being sucked raw! Poor girly.

It might be worth texting or ringing Vedra for advice on this?

Sophie
x
 
Echo what Sophie has said re Vedra

If the mas**** has been caught early I would think it important to give the sow antibiotics or her mastitis will worsten and she will remain uncomfortable unless she is given some anti inflamitory pain relief.
Goats milk is the nearest possible to Cavies milk but lactol and complan both work. Complan is the least like cavies milk but little ones sure seem to love it and I know many litters raised successfully on this.
There are creams you can use on mums nipples to stop them getting too sore whilst babies are feeding.

The only way to give Hannah a rest and time to recover from mastitis is to remove the babies imo but they would need hand rearing for a while as they are so young preferably from a tiny spoon as syringe feednig piggies that young is hard to make sure the milk is going where it should and babies can choke easily.

Fingers crossed for Hannah she has been through so much already poor thing.
 
It may help mummy pig to have her affected teat bathed in some warm water too. Poor thing, bless her. xx
 
Had a group of three babies whose mum died suddenly on day 7 Wasnt sure what to feed the babes so just gave the small sticks of cucumber for the moisture and then normal dried food with selection of veggies.They all thrived and I still have them Mousey Maxine and Midge.Midge has now been neutered and lines with all the other sows and boars.
 
Thing had a difficult labour last year, and although she was producing milk she was also in a hell of a state (not helped by a local vet who proudly boasted about her "elegant" long fingers when I went in to see if they'd mnaged to remove the 2 stillborn babies from inside her). She did get mild mastitis in one nipple, but managed OK with the three surviving babies. I did supplement feed to help for the first two or three days, but soon found they were thriving without me intervening. Thing made a full recovery :)

Lunch had a litter a while later, and for some reason she simply was not producing anything like enough milk. I ended up hand feeding her two babies, and used watered down Evap with some Abidec in it. Maybe not ideal, but they went from about 34g and 41g to 100g+ piggies on the syringe. No way were they born big enough to take on much solid food for themselves, took a good two or three weeks before they were properly managing guinea food although they were nibbling hay after 4 or 5 days.

I did somehow mess up syringing Meeps and he got pneumonia (I consider myself experienced with syringe feeding, and still made a mistake - Something I think everyone should bear in mind is it's not an inherently safe procedure), but somehow we got through that too!

If they're approaching 2 weeks old then the babies are probably fine to survive eating for themselves, but of course that's depending on how big and strong they are. I don't think it would hurt to "top them up" with a bit of syringe, so long as you're confident and aware of the potential risks :) Whether to seperate from her or not for her own health I'm unsure, I'd probably say yes *if* the babies are a fair size and not depending on her for bum chewing, face cleaning, etc.
 
I've got no experience of this sorry but hope Hannah is better soon and the babies are all doing well :)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top