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Breeding |
MarianaThe following is the first of three experiences received by email Mariana was mated to Ian Nigel and was past her due date and spent some hours straining, so I took her to the vet. He X-rayed Mariana and confirmed that she was, indeed, pregnant with three babies. (The X-ray fascinated the vet because he had never seen one of a pregnant chin and he said the babies looked like little birds.) We discussed letting Mariana continue alone, in hopes of having her babies on her own; giving her an injection to speed labor; and Caesarian section. Since Mariana had already been trying for some days to have her babies, we opted for the injection. When she still had not had her babies in twelve hours, the vet took her for c-section. At that time, we discussed spaying Mariana if there were any abnormalities present. I confirmed that if she was unable to produce babies normally or to nurse them or if there were any abnormality which would endanger Mariana's life in future pregnancies, then the vet should spay her. The vet delivered three babies from Mariana and found that there were indeed complications for Mariana having future litters, so he performed the spay. As it turned out, Mariana also had never developed any lactation glands, so I hand-fed the babies myself. Since Mariana was recovering from surgery, I had to use a surrogate mother to care for the babies -- we didn't want any chance of the babies trying to nurse and pulling on the stitches. The surrogate mother did very well, but she was not lactating at that time and all three babies died from pneumonia. The vet said that this was probably because the babies were not able to get collostrum from their mother in the first 24 hours and so had no immunities whatsoever. received by email from Jeoberg 10th March 2003, |
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