Time inbetween birthing

[illinidairychic]

I've heard before that a hog can hold out on having a few hoglets but what is the longest time anyone has ever experienced? This morning I went upstairs and found that Tink had had 3 babies and was fostering 2 of Rosies. Tonight I checked on them (one of Rosie's didn't make it due to head trama from yesterday) and there was an extra baby in there!! I was so excited and had to count them a couple of times cause I could have sworn I was crazy :p

[bloane]

I know this sounds insane, but 6 days!
One of my girls gave birth to 4 babies, and was presented with a foster baby. She happily settled in to raising the 5, so imagine my surprise when almost a week later I found a couple of freshly born baby bodies in the cage. They had been alive at birth, so the delay from birth of part 1 of the litter to part 2 of the litter didn't seem to cause major damage to them, and the mother had acted perfectly normal the entire time between the two litters, so it wasn't that she had a baby stuck and she was still in labor all of that time. I think she killed them basically to say "sorry, but I have my hands more than full with the 5 big kids, don't have any desire for any more squalling newborns.
Several hours between the birth of one baby and the next is not horribly uncommon, just look at how many times a person says "my hedgehog had babies last night, and she has X", and then a day or two later says "I don't know where it was hiding, but there is another (or a couple) of more babies in the nest now!".
Becca