Steph
06-29-2005, 12:02 AM
Jenn's thread on her sick little girl has given me an idea. I would really like to see everyone share their worst possible hedgie experience. Mostly in breeding but rescues and pets would be absolutely fine too. I am hoping this will help others prepare for the absolute worst. :)
I'll start...
In November we had a first time mom deliver a litter of 5 babies. On day 10 I decided to risk a real peek in to the igloo. There were two babies who'd been killed and thrown out already so I wasn't sure how many remained from my random views in to the igloo when mom was eating, etc...
When I did get a look I noticed 3 babies, one was about a quarter of the size of the others and I just sensed there was a problem. I immediately picked the baby up to check him/her over and realized she had a severely damaged leg. It appeared to have been chewed off, presumably during delivery and was seriously necrotic.
In all my breedings I'd never dealt with anything like this. My first instinct was to be just devastated. Then I realized what a miracle she was. How had she survived?? Why hadn't mom seen her as a weak link?? Why hadn't her siblings forced her out?? So I decided she obviously was supposed to live and she had the will to do so. In the wild she would NEVER have survived, she was an Albino which have shorter life spans anyway, and she was a real threat to the safety of the entire nest.
I phoned the vet and several breeders and we just didn't know how to approach this. Taking a 10 day old baby out in 30 degree weather when they are already compromised is a serious risk. So in the end the vet told me to clean up the stump and get a better look.
I soaked her (turned out to be a female btw) leg in a mixture of peroxide and warm water, tried to clean it up without really making it sore, and get a better look at it. When it was cleaned up the necrotic portions fell away and a nice pink stump remained in almost all areas but there was still some necrosis needing to come off. Surgery was not an option for her at this point so it was a wait and see sort of thing. I put neosporin on her leg and snuggled her dry and then put her back in with mom. At that point I started removing the bigger babies (both boys) on a 2 hour rotating basis to allow Andra (thanks to Auntie Brenda she now had a name that means Hope) time alone with mom to nurse.
The next day I was again devastated to see her mom had chewed the remainder of her stump off sometime in the night (I didn't mess with Andra again that night just the boys). I assume she didn't like the treatments we used and wanted to clean Andra herself.
I again consulted the vet and several breeders and at this point her stump actually looked quite good to me but I didn't really know what to look for, no jagged bone fragments were apparent, and it was nice and pink and not bleeding or oozing pus so we decided to just leave her for mom to care for. In this time I cleaned her cage 3 times a day and NEVER allowed any feces or urine to build up in the cage which was a real challenge. I was really serious about keeping her as clean as possible. I tried liners but she ended up more messy with the liners since she wasn't as mobile as her brothers so in the end we went back to shavings and just hoped it was the right choice.
The vet didn't want to attempt antibiotics on a baby that age that was already compromised by a severe trauma so we again decided to wait and see.
It was decided that if she lived (and she was not given good odds) we would take a really close look at the leg and her overall health when she reached 4 weeks old or a certain weight and see if she required future surgeries, antibiotics, etc...
I tried to not hold out hope for her but in this time I snuggled her, loved her, talked to her and her mom a lot, and prayed. She didn't open her eyes with her brothers, she opened them at about 3 weeks old and at that point they were very milky and she was not reactive to any movement or light and we determined she was blind. She remained a lot smaller than her brothers and was behind them in almost all developmental milestones. I continued to pray and love her...
When she reached 4 weeks she was still smaller than her brothers and wasn't even trying to venture from the nest like they were. I was finally able to take her to the specialist in another town. He was AMAZED at her leg. It was healthy, healing wonderfully, and would not require surgery. She had also begun to really scoot around using her other 3 legs, she wasn't as quick as her brothers but she was mobile. :)
Aside from her eyesight and her size she was overall healthy, heart, lungs, etc... were all fine so we did not give her antibiotics at that time.
At 7 weeks I completely removed the boys from the cage and left Andra with her mother (up until this point they were rotated on a 2 hour basis and we NEVER wavered from this, it was 2 hours without fail), she continued to nurse sporadically until she was completely cut off by mom at around 8 weeks (mom did this not me). I think this gave her the boost she needed to start gaining at a more regular interval. She started to really catch up to her brothers at this point size wise.
At 8 weeks I quit praying that she would make it and started to really breathe and thank God for pulling her through.
Those were by far the longest 8 weeks of my life. I cried all the time, I would snuggle Andra and just cry. I blamed myself for her injury, her suffering, etc... Was I doing the right thing?? Should we be more pro-active with treatments, etc...?? In that time I built a bond with both Andra and her mother that will NEVER be broken. Aside from that my entire family, my friends, and my 5-year-old son, learned a lesson in hope, prayer, and nature.
I truly think if we'd have tried to treat her away from mom she would have died. I have no idea why she wasn't cannabalized or thrown out but someone, somewhere, knew she was a fighter.
Andra is a permanent member of our family of course, she is loved and spoiled and truly has become my son's hedgie. He even plans to show her at the upcoming Mile High Show where we are certain she will win top honors. Aside from that we routinely take her on educational outings as she's just very sweet and her story is a great one to tell.
I took her to Denver for the Hedgehog Day Tea in February and no one knew it was her until I told them. She has barely any stump left so she tucks up what she has and just goes. She can keep up with and even outrun any of my hedgies. She is a perfect adult size of 320 grams and a beautiful Albino girl, she wheels, hunts down food, tubes, plays with toys, snuggles her beanie baby, anoints, eats, and poops like any other hedgie. I don't think it's possible for me to love or cherish her any more than I do.
Also, at about 3 months old we noticed she started responding to light flashes, etc... now we believe she can see just fine.
We believe she was just a bit underdeveloped either as a result of her injury or her injury was a result of underdevelopment, we'll never know, but she definitely taught us several very valuable lessons.
I'll start...
In November we had a first time mom deliver a litter of 5 babies. On day 10 I decided to risk a real peek in to the igloo. There were two babies who'd been killed and thrown out already so I wasn't sure how many remained from my random views in to the igloo when mom was eating, etc...
When I did get a look I noticed 3 babies, one was about a quarter of the size of the others and I just sensed there was a problem. I immediately picked the baby up to check him/her over and realized she had a severely damaged leg. It appeared to have been chewed off, presumably during delivery and was seriously necrotic.
In all my breedings I'd never dealt with anything like this. My first instinct was to be just devastated. Then I realized what a miracle she was. How had she survived?? Why hadn't mom seen her as a weak link?? Why hadn't her siblings forced her out?? So I decided she obviously was supposed to live and she had the will to do so. In the wild she would NEVER have survived, she was an Albino which have shorter life spans anyway, and she was a real threat to the safety of the entire nest.
I phoned the vet and several breeders and we just didn't know how to approach this. Taking a 10 day old baby out in 30 degree weather when they are already compromised is a serious risk. So in the end the vet told me to clean up the stump and get a better look.
I soaked her (turned out to be a female btw) leg in a mixture of peroxide and warm water, tried to clean it up without really making it sore, and get a better look at it. When it was cleaned up the necrotic portions fell away and a nice pink stump remained in almost all areas but there was still some necrosis needing to come off. Surgery was not an option for her at this point so it was a wait and see sort of thing. I put neosporin on her leg and snuggled her dry and then put her back in with mom. At that point I started removing the bigger babies (both boys) on a 2 hour rotating basis to allow Andra (thanks to Auntie Brenda she now had a name that means Hope) time alone with mom to nurse.
The next day I was again devastated to see her mom had chewed the remainder of her stump off sometime in the night (I didn't mess with Andra again that night just the boys). I assume she didn't like the treatments we used and wanted to clean Andra herself.
I again consulted the vet and several breeders and at this point her stump actually looked quite good to me but I didn't really know what to look for, no jagged bone fragments were apparent, and it was nice and pink and not bleeding or oozing pus so we decided to just leave her for mom to care for. In this time I cleaned her cage 3 times a day and NEVER allowed any feces or urine to build up in the cage which was a real challenge. I was really serious about keeping her as clean as possible. I tried liners but she ended up more messy with the liners since she wasn't as mobile as her brothers so in the end we went back to shavings and just hoped it was the right choice.
The vet didn't want to attempt antibiotics on a baby that age that was already compromised by a severe trauma so we again decided to wait and see.
It was decided that if she lived (and she was not given good odds) we would take a really close look at the leg and her overall health when she reached 4 weeks old or a certain weight and see if she required future surgeries, antibiotics, etc...
I tried to not hold out hope for her but in this time I snuggled her, loved her, talked to her and her mom a lot, and prayed. She didn't open her eyes with her brothers, she opened them at about 3 weeks old and at that point they were very milky and she was not reactive to any movement or light and we determined she was blind. She remained a lot smaller than her brothers and was behind them in almost all developmental milestones. I continued to pray and love her...
When she reached 4 weeks she was still smaller than her brothers and wasn't even trying to venture from the nest like they were. I was finally able to take her to the specialist in another town. He was AMAZED at her leg. It was healthy, healing wonderfully, and would not require surgery. She had also begun to really scoot around using her other 3 legs, she wasn't as quick as her brothers but she was mobile. :)
Aside from her eyesight and her size she was overall healthy, heart, lungs, etc... were all fine so we did not give her antibiotics at that time.
At 7 weeks I completely removed the boys from the cage and left Andra with her mother (up until this point they were rotated on a 2 hour basis and we NEVER wavered from this, it was 2 hours without fail), she continued to nurse sporadically until she was completely cut off by mom at around 8 weeks (mom did this not me). I think this gave her the boost she needed to start gaining at a more regular interval. She started to really catch up to her brothers at this point size wise.
At 8 weeks I quit praying that she would make it and started to really breathe and thank God for pulling her through.
Those were by far the longest 8 weeks of my life. I cried all the time, I would snuggle Andra and just cry. I blamed myself for her injury, her suffering, etc... Was I doing the right thing?? Should we be more pro-active with treatments, etc...?? In that time I built a bond with both Andra and her mother that will NEVER be broken. Aside from that my entire family, my friends, and my 5-year-old son, learned a lesson in hope, prayer, and nature.
I truly think if we'd have tried to treat her away from mom she would have died. I have no idea why she wasn't cannabalized or thrown out but someone, somewhere, knew she was a fighter.
Andra is a permanent member of our family of course, she is loved and spoiled and truly has become my son's hedgie. He even plans to show her at the upcoming Mile High Show where we are certain she will win top honors. Aside from that we routinely take her on educational outings as she's just very sweet and her story is a great one to tell.
I took her to Denver for the Hedgehog Day Tea in February and no one knew it was her until I told them. She has barely any stump left so she tucks up what she has and just goes. She can keep up with and even outrun any of my hedgies. She is a perfect adult size of 320 grams and a beautiful Albino girl, she wheels, hunts down food, tubes, plays with toys, snuggles her beanie baby, anoints, eats, and poops like any other hedgie. I don't think it's possible for me to love or cherish her any more than I do.
Also, at about 3 months old we noticed she started responding to light flashes, etc... now we believe she can see just fine.
We believe she was just a bit underdeveloped either as a result of her injury or her injury was a result of underdevelopment, we'll never know, but she definitely taught us several very valuable lessons.