[Gpdd] ANNOUNCEMENT: BIRTHS, DEATHS AND MARRIAGES!

[alexandra phillips]

Hello everyone again (and especially Dawnda - thanks for the message!)

Well, the numbers of GPigs in my house has swelled (considerably!).

My Marigold gave birth to 4 bouncing babies on Friday afternoon at around lunch time.  So close to lunch time in fact that I was in the kitchen getting them all bowls of greens and various of their favourite munchies and nearly missed it!  I saw the last baby born, though and it was magical.  She's a wonderful mother, very doting, and all the babies are doing very well.  I have a very large 3-tiered hutch for my piggies at the moment, and I had put a wire mesh halfway down Marigold's level of the hutch so that her "husband" could still talk to her, but that there was no chance of him getting her pregnant again straight after she gave birth.  Well, he has been wheeping away at her and the babies and popcorning all over the place!  I think he's a proud dad!  I put Marigold and her husband, Cobweb, in the indoor run together yesterday afternoon while I cleaned out their hutch (with all the babies, natch!) and he was having a lovely time investigating them all and at the end they were all following him around.  I think they were slightly in awe, as he is rather a enormous pig.

Tansy also gave birth to her babies yesterday afternoon (Saturday) and, sadly, that was a less successful affair.  She had 3 beautiful babies, but there was a very big baby (a ginger and white girl) who was obviously a breach and she died during delivery.  I am at the moment, piggie, cat and fish-sitting for my next door neighbours who are on holiday and I was paying a visit to their pigs at the time and missed the birth.  However, I checked in on them when I got back and tried to do what I could for the baby, but I just couldn't bring it back.  Tansy was traumatised because the baby was still attached by the umbilical cord and she had to pass the placenta too, but I took the baby out of the hutch as quickly as I could as she had just run away from her other babies too.  One was still in the amniotic sac and was obviously still alive so I had to work on that one first to ensure it lived.  Success on that front!  I watched them for a while and she stayed well away from the babies, so I decided to put them in the piggie carrier I have for vet visits while I cleaned out her hutch and removed signs of the other baby that died.  She then cleaned the other two up and didn't try and run away from them, but I'm not sure if she has fed them yet, so I'm going to need to keep a very close eye on them as I may need to hand-rear them, or I may try introducing them to Marigold, who is a super mother, to see if she will accept them and feed them, though 6 babies is going to be a real strain on her.  I did consider putting her and Tansy together, but they are sisters and they always used to bicker really badly anyway...bother!

However, Tansy's "husband", Moonshine, (who is a lilac and white Argente - gorgeous but bonkers) is ecstatic at the arrival of the babies and keeps wheeping to them through the wire mesh...

Good lord, just realised how much I have wittered on...sorry folks!  Will keep you posted on the babies.  As it is such a nice day here, I may take some of them round to play in my neighbour's garden (that's the problem with living in a flat).

Ebony (one of my other girl pigs) is hoping to get back with her Frankie and friend Tiger-Lily soon, but she is recovering from an abscess (which has been HORRIBLE....let me tell you!).  She must have got a piece of hay lodged, because they don't fight..they're very harmonious, and having to squeeze that abscess to get the muck out has not been one of my most favourite jobs!

Gotta go and check on next door's piggies...

Alex