I had triplets born on sat. The smallest one had a few rough days and is now in the house doing well. He had white on his umbilical cord, I have never seen this before and wondered if this was why he had such a rough start. It took a day before he could stand, and just started running and jumping..He also has a white line on his hooves.
Here is the cord. Has anyone seen this before?
Now on to this morning, the other 2 were doing great, full bellies and running around....I found the other boy down with the runs. and it seemed to be all bloody....Not sure if it was discharge from mom or not...I brought him in and cleaned him up and have him in front of the heater...I have not tried to feed him yet, he was chilled...any suggestions on what to do for him... If he does have bloody scours I am not sure what to do....Hopefully once he is warmed and fed he will perk up.
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Whatever you're doing with Elvis is working, because he looks great! I thought you just threw in a picture of another kid, because he didn't look like he had any problems.
I just learned that yellow pasty stuff with blood can be "normal." I don't bottle feed many kids, so I'd never seen it before last week, so I kind of freaked out when my little 1.5 pound bottle doe had that. I emailed another breeder who bottlefeeds all of her kids, and she said it happens sometimes, and her vet said not to worry. Pasty is normal, but if it's liquid like mustard, that's diarrhea. I had diarrhea in a set of twins once several years ago, and it was because they were getting too much milk, so I had to separate them from their mother for a few hours every day to keep them from being piggies. Their back ends looked like they were squirted with a mustard bottle.
Had you watched him nurse before he got so weak? The other kid is fine with no symptoms? Mom has no symptoms? You said that you weren't sure if the blood was from mom earlier. Have you ruled that out? How many times has his dam freshened? Do you know what her supply was like, if she's freshened before? It can be tough enough to figure out what's going on with kids when you're right there with them. It's even tougher via email, because you just never know what little significant fact you might be leaving out on either end of the conversation. Normal kids don't have trouble with cold weather -- at least not down to ten below zero or so, which is the coldest we've had.
Little Elvis is the smallest of the triplets...He is living in the house and doing great...Just seemed to take him longer to get where he should be.
The other boy with the diarrhea is doing better. It was the yellow pasty stuff and had red blood, the next time it was a reddish brown paste. It was all over his back legs and tail. He was pretty weak and didn't look like he had eaten anything.
I warmed him up and after he had gotten up and seemed to have some energy I took him out and he nursed again. I will check on him again soon.
It has been really cold here for the past few days.
Is Elvis not one of the triplets?
No idea about the white on the umbilical cord, but I can't imagine how it would have anything to do with the little guy having issues. If he was smaller than the rest, and from the one photo, it looks like he's about half the size of the others, that is enough reason to do poorly. Sometimes the tiny ones don't make it at all. I just had a 1.5 pound kid born in a batch of quads that were all 3-4 pounds, and she is finally drinking 2 ounces at a feeding at 8 days of age. If he was born at under two pounds, that is very tough. I've had some die, but I had one grow up to become an ARMCH, so you just never know.
As for the other having diarrhea, can you explain the color and consistency? Does it look like someone squirted mustard all over his back end? Why was the one chilled? Had he fallen into the water bucket? Normal newborn poop is the color of mustard, but it's a pasty consistency, and a bowel movement is about the size of a pinto bean, but soft.