My Pets’ Update December 2010 – June 2011

In the last five or six months I haven’t updated this site a lot, mainly beacuse so much has been going on. Unfortunately not all the stuff going on has been positive.

On December 15th 2010 Charcoal, one of our lovely guinea pigs had to be put down. This was a very upsetting time for us all. Her twin sister Star is now living on her own in the hutch that both guinea pigs used to share; Star appears to be ok now and is mixing well with our other piggies and Velvet.

Our pregnant mare Morjoy Tulip prematurely gave birth to a stillborn colt foal in the night of  February 27th/28th 2011. This was a very distressing time as the birth didn’t go as planned and there were slight complications; the foal was born in a ‘red bag delivery’ – inside the womb the placenta had detached and wrapped around the foal, and the whole lot was ejected as an ‘unopened package’ meaning that if the foal had been alive at that point it would have most likely suffocated before birth due to the detached placenta.
For a couple of days beforehand I’d been keeping a close eye on Tulip when she started exhibiting unusual behaviour. It was on the morning of the 28th at about 6.30am that I discovered the dead foal wrapped in the placenta. Tulip remained remarkably calm throughout the whole thing and we are very proud of her.

Following this, later that day I separated Tulip from the field she was sharing with Gradbach, a shetland stallion and the father of the foal, and put her into her origional field.

Throughout March and April, Tulip had a number of lise infestations which we treated with a shampoo based medical wash.

Last year Tulip had very bad sweet itch, something which we thought she might escape this year. Unfortunately, she did agian contract it, but only in a minor way. We’ve only had to treat her for it twice so far (writing in late June). She seems to be paticularly affected at the base of her tail.

Unfortunately two of my giant african land snails, Shelley and Claire, did not survive the winter, despite the heating we put in place. We’ve been told it is likely to be beacuase of their size, they were after all only babies. Felicity survived for another two months until she displayed signs of going into hibernation again, despite the warmer weather. We have come to the conclusion that she too has passed away.

In the middle of May and the beginning of this month (June 2011) we found that Star, one of the guinea pigs, had a bad lice infestation which was causing her to scratch resulting in scabs and hair loss. We immedialy took her to the vets and she’s been treated accordingly and is now much better.

I’ll just give a quick update of the animals we currently have at our farm, although the farmer that we rent some of our land to has cattle on (which aren’t mentioned here):

Velvet (rabbit)
Star (guinea pig)
Pixie (guinea pig)
Orchid (guinea pig)
Hazel (guinea pig)
Aurea (guinea pig)
Gerty (guinea pig)
Goldsytch Gradbach (shetland pony)
Morjoy Tulip (shetland pony)

Wildlife regulars at our farm:

Horace (male pheasant)
Helen and Ellen (female pheasants)
Barny (barn owl)
1 young fox
2 young deer

Now regarding our stray farm cat, Mr Tiggins; in the last five months we’ve had one sighting of a cat that we believe to be him.

 

June 27, 2011 · Maddia (Admin) · Comments Closed
Tags: , , , , ,  Â· Posted in: My Cats, My Giant African Land Snails, My Guinea Pigs, My Pet Updates, My Rabbits, My Shetland Ponies