What a few days!

We have had a rather eventful last few days.

On thursday morning Richard went into the paddock to find a cold, lifeless cria on the ground.  Annie had given birth at 10 1/2 months pregnant.  She can't have been born long but she was clearly very poorly.  We called the vet out who didn't fancy her chances at all.  Her temperature wouldn't even register on the thermometer.  Thankfully my clinic for the day had been cancelled earlier in the week and I was on hand to try to do what I could.  I spent quite a while warming her with a hairdryer and eventually, when she was warm enough, we tube fed her.  She was clearly extremely weak but we had at least been able to warm her up.  She could hold her head swaying it around for brief periods now.

By her third feed she was able to take it very successfully from the bottle, if I steadied her head.  She spent her first night in the house with us, where I could monitor her carefully and carry on feeding her.  From then on she continued to make progress.  Despite her limbs being very wobbly and knock knee'd we were able to stand her for short periods the following day.  If we held her she was able to feed from her mum for short periods.   We had expressed what we could up until then so that she got what we could give her but her feed had mainly been powdered colostrum.

She is now able to stand herself up and feed herself - a vast improvement.  We hope she continues to do well.  We have named her Freesia.  She is extra special to us since she is the first girl Annie has given birth to here (she has had 4 boys for us prior to that) and she is a very pretty fawn.

In addition Saturday saw the birth of 2 call ducks.  I had to leave them in the care of the family whilst I had a night off in Newquay on a hen night.  I came back to find another here today.  Rather late hatchers - being call ducks they normally hatch after 26-27 days.  These have been born on day 28 and 29!  As you can see the two that have dried out are very sweet!