Years ago, a wise rancher lady told me "Where you have livestock, you will sometimes have dead stock". Never so true have those words rung true than on our ranch this week.
Sunday, what should have been a glorious event, turned tragic. The time had come for Popo, one of our three original llama girls, to have her baby (cria). Since Popo was an experienced mother with no history of complications, we did not expect the events that unfolded.
Just as the early morning sky began to take on color, we checked our pastures to make sure all was well. We noticed Popo laying down in an odd way, so we rushed out to check out the situation, expecting to find her in the process of delivering a baby. Instead, what we found behind her was a mound of intestines. Immediately, we called for a vet!
Upon arrival, the vet verified that Popo was in labor but, for some reason, her cervix had failed to dilate. During the contractions, the baby's foot somehow tore a hole thru the wall of her uterus. As the contractions continued, Popo's small intestine and bowel pushed thru the hole and out. Then, her uterus began to push itself out with the baby behind it! We could see the baby's head outlined thru the walls of the uterus, and could watch the baby breathing while still inside.
Right there in our pasture, the vet was able to make an incision in the uterus to extract the baby, clean the protruding mass, stitch up the tears and incision, and carefully put all her innards back inside. Once she was "back together", Popo stood and walked a short distance with us. Popo - always the trooper. We quickly got Popo into the van with us and headed for the vet's office. Her baby rode in front with us to get dried off and warmed up. At the vet's office, Popo was started on an IV to push fluids and medications to stave off infection, and to prompt dilation of her cervix; the placenta was not yet expelled. The vet warned us that Popo had a hard battle ahead of her if she was going to survive.
Meanwhile, her beautiful baby boy, Cooper, was battling for his own life. After such a rough delivery on a cold morning, he was having trouble warming up. His breathing was labored, and he was struggling to survive. The vet was able to given him some medication to help him breathe easier, and we kept him warm with hot air from the car heater till his body temperature came up. Finally, he made a turn for the better! The vet was able to milk some colostrum from Popo and fed him that from a syringe. We were all cautiously optimistic. We all prayed for a good outcome for both Popo and Cooper.
Sunday afternoon, Popo remained at the vet, and we brought little Cooper home. We carefully fed him some more colostrum we had stored from our dairy goats, and got him situated in a protected pen with another new llama mother, Patience and her 6 day old son, Noah. After his first breakfast, Cooper took a much needed nap, then began to find his legs. He learned to stand up and began to move around. We gave him more colostrum bottles (about 1-1.5 ounces at a time) thru the evening and he was doing well. We were feeling a bit more positive.
The next morning, Monday, an early call to the vet found Popo to be "holding her own". Cooper was okay, but acting a bit more lethargic. He seemed a little reluctant to take a bottle, and sounded just a bit raspy in his breathing. Throughout the day, his breathing got better, but his lethargy increased. He no longer wanted to hold his head up, and could barely stand on his own when we helped him up. His interest in taking a bottle was zero. We combined Nutri-Drench (a liquid multi-vitamin) with his milk to give him a boost. Then, at the vet's suggestion, added .5 cc of a Vitamin B complex to his milk for one feeding. Towards evening, he picked his head and and was a bit more interactive, tho still lethargic.
Sadly, worse news came in from the vet .... Popo had taken a turn for the worse in the afternoon, and passed away about 5 PM. Poor little Cooper was now an orphan. We were gravely concerned that his lethargy was, at least in part, being brought on by his need for his mother's attention. No human mother can adequately fill that role for a llama baby. We had hoped that his companion llamas would help restore his spirit, and little Noah was trying his best. Cooper definitely responded to Noah's attempts to interact, but his responses faded as his lethargy increased.
As the day came to a close and night deepened, Cooper began to fade. In the early morning hours on Tuesday, beautiful little Cooper quietly passed away in his sleep. Cooper went to join his momma, Popo, in the great pasture beyond.
We are truly heartbroken. It hurts to lose a beloved llama friend ... times two. There will be better days, and we will keep our happy memories and derive much learning from this experience. We chose to share this story here so others who follow our blog might find some useful information in its contents, and another llama life might be saved someday. Life is not without challenges, and they are challenges worth facing.
A special note:
We are immensely thankful for Dr. Wright and the vet team at Belton Veterinary Clinic who worked so hard to try to save both Popo and Cooper; we could not have asked them to do more.
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