Hello,
Jo Ann asked me to write more about this, so here goes.....
Princess, one of our white ebony females was getting close to her due date, earlier in her pregnancy you could feel two kits moving ( easier to tell when they are moving in differerent directions which is not always possible). Toward her due date you could still feel two distinct heads, but only one kit ever seemed to be moving. We were not sure if we were always catching one sleeping or if there was a problem. She seemed to be overdue, but we were not sure of an exact date, just a close proximity. She finally did go into labor, and was having a harder time then she has ever had delivering before. She produced one male kit, no placenta (our first clue) and continued to have labor pains. This was apparent by all of her stretching, labored breathing, and continued pushing efforts. I have never had a chin take longer than a few hours to deliver her full litter, but decided to give Princess more time. We kept her in our room on our bed with us, she was still looking great, no signs of fever, lethargy, diarrhea, so we kept an eye on her and let her continue. By the next morning still nothing.. no placenta, no kit, just a mommy who was starting to get very tired.
Thankfully Piadora delivered a kit (female standard) and she has always been our best mom. We took a chance and tried to foster in Princesses kit...in case we had to take her for a c-section, or even worse if she didn't make it. We stayed with Piadora for a few hours to make sure the fostering would go okay, as we have never had to do this before. All seemed to be going well, so we left our daughter in charge of Piadora and the two kits, and took Princess to our vet.
He took an x-ray, and it showed one kit still inside. He could not tell if it was alive or not (but at this point we were assuming not). He preformed a c-section, and the nurse came out to tell me that Princess was doing well, but the kit had turned out to be a non-viable, severely deformed kit (they asked if I wanted to see it, but I declined). He put Princess on Baytril and sent us home. He was very glad that we had fostered in the healthy kit not only because of the antibiotics, but also so she could heal without further drain on her system, or irritation to her wound.
Princess is now doing very well, eating and playing as usual, and back up to her normal weight. The fostering was a huge success, and both kits are growing up fast. Piadora is a great mom.
We are very thankful, and truly blessed.
Julianne
Here are some pics of them all.
