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

On Saturday afternoon Victoria’s premature cria, which had picked up the nick-name Floppy, died.

On Friday it seemed like things were improving. He had a suck reflex again, and was drinking milk. But by the afternon his temperature started to drop- he couldn’t hold it steady any more. Loss of thermostasis is not a good thing. He also lost his suck reflext, and I had to go back to electrolytes and sugar water.

He survived the night, but Saturday morning he was still cold. I was trying to pack him in with hot watter bottles, but it was not working and his temperature had dropped to a dangerously low 34.5, so at 9 AM we pulled him inside, and put him in a warm bath. Over the next 45 minutes we warmed him back up to 38.5. Drying him off was a bit traumatic for him, we think.

At this point the wind had died down and it was sunny so we put him out in the paddock with his mother, lying in the sun. He was still quite weak and limp. His termparture dropped a bit at first to 37.3, and then slow rose to 39.4 by 3 PM, a bit high, but not dangerously so. I figured the sun was past maximum, and I would check his temperature again before the next feed.

45 minutes later his termpature had soared up to 41.5, which is a brain-cooking super-bad. I rushed him into the shade and put him on cool ground, but he was already in distress. His condition deteriorated rapidly. I think he might have had a heart attack. His breathing and heart stopped. I tried CPR but could not revive him, and he died in my arms at 4:05 PM.

We called our friend MJ who was just getting off work at a nearby vet clinic. She came over and did the post-mortem for us, which was inconclusive. Nothing grossly wrong inside. All organs his were okay, and he had no signs of bloat, pneumonia, etc. We cannot be sure of the cause of death, but his weakness from the beginning probably played a big role. Unable to eat effectively, sugar water is a poor substitute for mothers milk. Little babaies have no reserves, and eventually his whole system went out of wack. The loss of thermostasis was probably a sign of other stuff going wrong too.

After burying the little guy, we changed clothes and drove MJ home- as we had now made her late for the party she and her flatmate were throwing. We spent the evening socializing and trying to forget the day we had just had.

While the whole episode was emotionally draining and a bit depressing, we have to look on the bright side. This was a huge educational experience, and we have learned a great deal about neonatal care. Perhaps those skills will one day help us save another premature cria. And we also have to count overselves luck that the two cria we lost this season were both males, as we have been otherwise quite unlucky on the male:female ratio so far.