Bad news...

[wyvernrider18]

So Hotaru had her babies. I don't know how many, but the one I clearly saw was dead. They were just born today, though. It must have been born dead or something because there was no sign that she killed it herself. It was all in one piece. Hopefully there are more in the litter that survived, but that one in particular wasn't as lucky....

[hularious]

aw, that's too bad! hopefully there are some that are AOK.

[Melody]

So sorry to hear that! No matter how good we are to our hedgies, sometimes nature just does its thing. I know many times I have tried to save a weak baby, only to find out there was something else wrong with it anyway, and it did not survive inspite of all my intervention. Sometimes they may be born dead, and sometimes the parents just realize more than we do, and let go. Hope there is good news and more babies to follow!

[illinidairychic]

Had she pushed the baby out?? Sometimes if the babies get too far from mom they get cold and can't regulate their own body temperature. Good luck with the rest of the litter :)

[wyvernrider18]

We had to do an emergency C-section on Hotaru. After discovering the dead baby, which was huge, by the way, I watched for a while after, noticed something sticking out of her- bluish black- and knew that wasn't right. Luckily the exotics instructor was in the lab next to the exotics room doing a clin path lab and I went and got her, discovered that it was a breached baby- very necrotic. We tried to pull it out because obviously she couldn't do it on her own cuz it had been there for a while. It tore in half, so we had to do surgery to remove the other half and we also thought there were 2 more babies, but there wasn't. The just got done with surgery and there are no live babies. One thing if for sure- I am NEVER breeding her again. When she comes home with me at the end of the year, I am toying with the idea of having her spayed. All I know is it scared me to death and I'm glad I checked on her when I did because I doubt she would have made it.

[hularious]

Wow, that is such an ordeal you had to go through! I coudln't imagine what that would have been like, but it seems you were at the right place at the right time. We all are looking forward to a speedy recovery for Hotaru! Hopefully Hedgehogs don't get post partum depression...yikes!

[illinidairychic]

breeding sucks!!! okay not all the time but incases like this your heart races, you ball a little and you always wonder why me!! I hope she has a speedy recovery and gets better soon. If she needs a support group tell her she can chat with Mia any time about her c section ;)

[wyvernrider18]

Yeah. It's sad that the babies didn't make it- they were just too big. But at the same time, I'm also very releived because Hotaru is okay. When all this was happening, some people were like "Well, maybe some of the babies will live" I told them that I could care less about the babies right now, it was Hotaru I was worried about. I'm actually toying with the idea of spaying her after I adopt her. They were going to do a spay right after the c-section since there were no live babies, but they said she was losing too much blood and they had to sew her back up.

[illinidairychic]

Mia was spayed when they did her c-section. I told them I didn't give a rats *** about hoglets I just didn't want her to suffer. She acutally had 3 viable babies and 1 was sucessfully fostered.

[wyvernrider18]

I am thinking we should have restricted her diet just a little bit. Part of the reason she had so much trouble was that the babies were HUGE! And there was only 2, so they had much more room to grow. Too bad we didn't x-ray her earlier on in her pregnancy.... I know it's not my fault, but I can't help feeling responsible for her going through so much pain. i just wish I could take it back...