s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

One of the ‘pacas, Chris, has colic.

Stephen noticed he was having problems when he went up to check them this morning (it’s why you check, don’t you know). He was walking stiffly, would try to kush, but couldn’t get comfortable. To make matters worse, the other two were taking advantage of his incapacitation to try to climb the social ladder (read: they were trying to neck-wrestle him — pretty annoying when you have a stomach ache).

Stephen and I rang Linda at Willowbank, then carried him down to the dog run where a) we could keep an eye on him and b) where the others could keep an eye on him without pestering him. Then I rang three different vets trying to find an on-call large animal vet. There’s apparently exactly one for the entire Wellington area.

Linda came and gave us moral support for a couple hours while we waited for the vet.

Vet finally made it about a quarter to 4, which was good, because by that time Chris had stopped circling and trying to kush and roll, and had pretty much collapsed onto his side, groaning and trembling.

“Colic” means, pretty much, “gut pain”. It can be caused by anything from gas or constipation to poison, worms, having eaten a stray bit of fencing wire, or having your intestine twisted around itself and tied in a knot.

The vet gave Chris some pain killers and some bowel relaxant, the former of which got him feeling better enough to get up and start the circling and kushing again. He gave us some more painkillers and bowel relaxant to give him later, along with some paraffin oil to hopefully get things moving again (assuming, of course, there’s not a knot preventing it from having anywhere to move to). He says there’s probably a 50/50 chance he’ll come right.

Dammit. We like Chris.