Sadly Venus gave birth in the early hours of Saturday morning in the pouring rain to twin girls, she had managed to carry them almost ten months. I found her stood over them in the field at 5am (my usual early morning check), she was a first time mum and clearly very confused by things.
The girls were solid brown weighing 4kg and a tiny rose grey weighing 2kg, I spent the first few hours beating myself up about the bigger girl who may have stood a very slim chance had she been born during the day.
Disturbing pictures follow.......
Of all the alpaca lines we have Venus is from a line of girls who produce big babies so if anyone stood a chance of managing twins it would be this one, Venus's mum star was our biggest cria ever at 13kg.
Sadly the loss of the twins was only the start of it, Venus seemed to be taking a while to pas the placenta, and I was beginning to think that some oxytocin may be required but then she started to stain and out began to come the placenta.
It took slightly longer than usual, breeders out there will know that gravity usually plays a big part once the afterbirth starts to come away. However this didn't happen and it soon became apparent that things weren't going to plan and she was prolapsing.
Poor Venus ended up with a double horned prolapse! My phone went flat after this photo so you will be pleased to know you don't get to see the worst of things.
Venus isn't the most cooperative of girls and hates the halter and not getting her own way so catching her to resolve this problem wasn't going to be easy. In fact it took us the whole time it took the vet to arrive to actually get her out of the field! Thankfully I'd just managed to wrap things in clingfilm before she threw herself onto the ground squealing.
Sam Prescott, our vet, is fantastic and after giving Venus an epidural soon got the left horn hack into position but the right was much tighter and took some doing but he managed. Paul did ask if he was attaching it to her tongue at one point as he was having to go in so far!
Venus is now sore and not happy about being in but things are looking much better than they did.
The jury is out on whether to mate her again or not. Has anyone else out there got any experience on prolapses, particularly double horned ones following twins?
Posts
8 comments:
Hard luck there with the twins, she almost made it. We have had two prolapses here, not sure what a twin horn one is, both of ours were quite the most disturbing things I have ever seen! One female went on to have a cria without problems the following year. The other one, was a bit late so will be mating her next month.
Sorry news Debbie, but you can't beat yourself up. I too am up somewhere between 5 and 6 am doing checks, and we also lost a 4kg cria born during the night. We go way beyond what is the norm and need to give ourselves a pat on the back that the dams were both okay x
Very sorry Debbie - a prolapse is a horrid thing. I hope your next births are very straightforward.
x
A sad story indeed, so hope Mum will be OK over time. Don't beat yourself up - you do a great job! Shirley & Robbie
Sad to lose any crias but you did well to sort out the prolapse which will hopefully result in more little ones in the future. Interesting the size difference which is as it was when one of our females aborted twins, a few years ago, at around 8 months gestation. One was much tinier than the other, very sad to see and hard for "mum".
Sorry to hear that Debbie, at the start of your birthing season. We had a 3.8kg still-born at night, at 10.5months last year, and I wonder if there is something in the physiology, that causes 'un-viable' births to happen before dawn, in a simmilar way that most births occur during the early part of the day.
What a shame Debbie and to take them so far too. Hope she recovers quickly and fingers crossed that she is able to breed again.
Sorry to hear about this
Post a Comment