Well it's been awhile since my last post, and for good reason things have not been going well here. As i'm sure many of you realize the site has not yet had it's makeover, this is because of a whole new string of computer problems that are preventing a successful upload, but hopefully we get get it sorted out soon and launch. My fawn doe Bbeary's Solstice got woolblock over the Winter, and i tried very hard to cure her without cutting her down, but it was not happening, thus she is now clipped a grave disappointment when she only needed one more leg to grand and she was one of very few i would have to show. But the good news is that she's back to normal, and thats all that matters.
The latest disappointment was a horrible case of GI stasis which affected our doe Bbeary's Tila Tequila. GI stasis strikes quickly and without warning. Tila gave birth to 5 babies with Divinci on March 2nd, she went off her feed two days before kindling,normal. But she didn't start eating again, even days after kindling, she stayed huddled up in the corner of her cage. A few days pass since kindling, still no change, and now she has 5 mouths to feed. We decide to take her to the vet, the vet does x-rays ultra sound, to check for any stuck kits, but there are none, a relief. She is diagnosed with Statsis and we are given pain medication, and IV fluids for her. IV's are probably the most important thing to have to a rabbitry especially with kindling does, it's good if you can get a vet to show you how to put them in properly, and buy the fluid bags from the vet, this can save you alot of money as the bags of fluids run about $15 each whereas a vet will charge you roughly $40 just to put the needle in, that doesn't include the cost to see the vet, all those charges can really add up. We also gave Tila Oxbow critical care by mouth, if you don't have critical care you can also grind up their regular pellets, and add yogurt or a high calorie paste such as STAT. A week goes by, Tila still hasn't eaten or drunken on her own her poops are he size of the babies, which are severely underweight due to Tila starving condition, although we continue to supplement her and do IV's a few times a day, the babies are getting barely enough to eat and Tila's milk dries up. This is good and bad, good for Tila so she can put more energy into regaining her own health, bad for the babies as they are still so young, and haven't had the proper nutrients to set up their bacteria balance.
So we cross out fingers and start feeding KMR to the babies, they start gaining weight, and seem more healthy, but still behind from their initial lack of nutrition, they make it to two weeks and their eyes open, the colours are fabulous two blacks, a blue a chocolate and two broken blacks, one absolutely perfectly marked, ok so now were attached hand feeding babies, certainly makes you love them that much more. We are hopeful, they are looking good all things considered. Wenesday March 18 comes around, i wake up to find the Blue kit dead, strange as he was eating well and competly fine the night before, the only thing noticably wrong when i found him was a bloated stomach. The rest of the week goes by, and his/her littermates begin die off, this time we notice the sytoms strained breathing, an unwillingness to eat, closed eyes and lastly the bloated stomach a few hours after these sytoms appear the baby dies.
The last one, the lttle chocolate died yesterday. We are heartbroken. We are planning on having the babies checked out to find out what went wrong so suddenly, that caused them all to die. We are certain though after this experiance we will not try and raise such young kits on formula, we did breed another doe at the same time as tila, but she missed, it would have been ideal to foster them as they were healthy and there is no doubt in my mind they would have survived if Tila hadn't of gotten sick. The good news is Tila in on the mend, eating and drinking on her own now, still not eating enough, but the healing process is very slow. Next time you have a healthy litter, keep in mind how lucky you are, how many things could have gone wrong, it was hard to even go on the computer and see everyone else's thriving litters, when yours is struggling even when you are doing absoululty everything you can. Here is an excellent article on GI stasis:
http://www.bio.miami.edu/hare/ileus.htmlWith all this said, I highly doubt we will be attending any US shows this year and very few Canadian shows. We will also be cutting our herd back abit and will have some nice animals for sale.
I hope no one else goes through this heartbreaking experiance.
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