Author Lani Ritchey
CALIFORNIA CHINS
SURVIVING A
CHINCHILLA C-SECTION
We assume your chinchilla female is pregnant. Don’t laugh, many people don’t
monitor their animals that carefully. So it is a good question to start with.
Is
she pregnant?
If she is pregnant and seems to be in contractions, how do you know those are
contractions? In a normal birth, a female can be in mild to moderate
contractions
for several days. BUT THE VAGINAL AREA IS NOT DILATED!
Is she standing up on her hind legs ,stretching and then
sitting /squatting down over a period of time?
Is she is laying down on her side? Can you see rippling of
the stomach muscles from the rib cage to her hips?
Does she stand up and thrash about in agony?
Is she doing this?
Is she squealing or grinding her teeth? Are her ears flattened?
When you take her out and examine her vaginal area, does the vaginal
opening
(vulva) look swollen, pink to red in color or have a clear mucus discharge?
Has the vaginal opening dilated? If the opening is about the size of a
pencil
eraser, she is fully open.
Has her water broken? Does she look wet? Some females
will look drenched and others will be very clean-only the bedding is wet.
The
water can be clear to a blush tint color.( Recommend clean bedding for
near-term females, it makes it easier to check on things.)
Is there any bleeding from the vaginal area?
If most of the answers to the above questions are yes, then the clock starts
ticking on potential birthing complications. You have an immediate problem
if:
YOU HAVE A BLOODY DISCHARGE and no baby . Get to the Vet immediately.
If her water has broken and she is not dilated, get to a vet immediately.
Or if the female has fluttering( unproductive) contractions after the water
breaks, you need help.
If her water has broken and she is dilated with good productive contractions,
wait
and watch. In the next 45- 60 minutes, she should produce a baby. If at any
time she starts bleeding bright blood, you are in trouble. If she starts to
have
fluttering contractions or even stops having contractions, get to a vet.
Normal births should be uneventful. The mother will start chirping to the
baby.
She will work at the vaginal area-cleaning and tugging at her skin. The
babies
usually arrive nose first. The mother will pull and tug at them. This is where
baby fingers and noses can be injured. If the mother can’t pull the baby out
or
the baby twists and gets stuck, you have a problem. If she is thrashing
around in
the cage and the baby is partly out, you have to assist immediately. Somehow
immobilise the mother and pull with the contractions the baby . Remove the
embyronic sack from the baby’s nose and give it back to the mother to finish
cleaning.
If she has multiple babies, the next birth can occur at any moment. Though
usually
they occur in 20-40 minutes. Any hour between babies is possible. The
afterbirth
for the first baby may arrive 20-30 minutes after the birth. It is a large
glob
(golfball size) of reddish-brown tissue.
The mother normally eats it.
IF after the birth of a baby, she continues to have heavy contractions and
nothing
happens after an hour, call your vet. They may want you to bring the
animals
(mother and all babies) in for an examination.
Or if the female has no contractions or fluttering contractions after the
birth
and you can feel something in the birth canal or in either of the uterine
horns (2
of them), you need help. Call your vet.
NOW YOU ARE HEADING FOR THE VET
BRING THE MOTHER AND HER BABIES to the vet.
Secure the carrier and wrap it with towels or old blankets to protect from
cold
temperature. If the afterbirth is uneaten, bring that along too, plus any
dead
babies. The vet may need to see them.
AT THE VET’S
The vet will first palpate the female. They are feeling for anything in the
uterine horns and birth canal. They will ask how long as she been in labor;
what
kind of contractions and how long since the last baby or when the water broke.
From there, they will usually try an ultrasound to determine if there is a
live
baby (heart beat). The ultrasound has difficulty assessing a chinchillla
babies’
condition. However you should be able to pick up a fetal heartbeat.
An x-ray may be used to deterimine if there is any baby at all if the
ultrasound
doesn’t show a heartbeat. The fetal bones will show up on the x-ray.
If the ultrasound shows a fetal heartbeat, the vet will start with one unit
of PIT
subQ (IM not recommended) and wait 20 minutes. If the female doesn’t start
having
productive contractions during those 20 minutes, the vet may give a second
dose of
subQ PIT. Again you wait 20 minutes. During that last 20 minutes, the
operating
room should be readied. If she doesn’t deliever anything with the second
dose of
PIT, then a c-section is the recommended course of action.
|
|
