The bad news is... we are exhausted.
Gil was out of town when our first baby was born. The mother had a bad track record as far as mothering goes. As we expected, I needed to step in. At 11:30 p.m., I went out and helped deliver the baby. I spent the night outside w/ her and the mother. The mother wanted nothing to do with us but I wanted to give her a chance to take her baby. Still, I couldn't leave the baby alone with her. I wasn't so much worried about the mother hurting the calf but I was worried about coyotes that I could hear in the meadows around us. It was freezing cold... as I learned when the sun came up and I could see the pastures covered with frost. Since I delivered her, I got to name her. This was my one big chance for something "girly"! Her name is Sparkle Princess Rainbow. I named her with the help of my inner four year old! We are bottle raising her.
We were prepared for the mother to reject this calf. Even though it seemed dramatic at the time, compared to everything else that has followed, it was uneventful.
CALF NUMBER TWO....
The second birth was a frightening episode. The mother strained and flailed all day. We called the vet. The on-call veterinarian examined the birth canal, baby and all pronouncing, "the baby is too big... you will need to have a c-section." He managed to pull the head and legs out but that was it. A C-section would mean loading the desperate mother into a trailer w/ the baby stuck in the birth canal (partially sticking out) and taking her to a large animal surgery facility. The cost would be a minimum of $7,000.00. Now, we have spent large sums of money on or animals' health. I have spent over $5,000 on our beloved Scarlet dog alone. But in the case of this camel, the risks where more daunting than the cost. The baby would most likely not survive the process and the prognosis for the mother was not much better.
We made a brave, bold, farmer's decision: we needed to deliver that calf vaginally. It took the vet, Gil, and two others.... four people... to pull that calf out! I stood with the mother at her head and watched her bare down while the team pulled.
Once the shoulders passed through, the baby was laid on the ground where it wriggled helplessly, gasping for air like a fish out of water. It was painful to watch her struggle. We all jumped in, mom included and began touching her and rubbing her and supporting her. Mom grunted low and soft and immediately fell in love with her daughter. The little girl, after so much time in the birth canal was very traumatized. The white of her right eye was deep, blood red; indicative of a very strained birth.
The truly amazing thing was that no one gave up. Not the mother, not the baby and not any of us. Slowly, minute by minute, her breathing got under control. In about an hour she was sitting fairly normally, breathing at a relaxed, smooth rate with mom standing gently over her. We bottle fed her for a day and then mom took over.
The saga should end there but it was just beginning. After a couple of days, Gil noticed the mother wasn't really eating and was never seen chewing her cud. We called the vet who took blood and determined that the mother was in acute kidney failure. She was dying.
We made the decision to start IV fluid therapy, a procedure normally done at large animal surgery facilities for very sick horses. Again, taking the camel away to a hospital was not a good option for a new, first-time mother camel. Her baby would need to be supplemented. It has to be fed by someone with a lot of camel experience as it has to be bottle fed right at the mother's teats so as not to risk breaking the bond or stressing mother or baby. The camels can seem very dangerous with their “roaring” sounds and gaping, threatening jaws. This is not a job for a team with no camel experience.
Our vet came to the ranch, we sedated the mother and the vet inserted an IV catheter into the mother’s neck. The catheter has a small, rubber end that sits outside the skin and is protected with bandages. Each time you want to administer fluids, you insert a large needle that is attached to a long tube leading up to the IV bags. The catheter insertion procedure was a success. We discovered later that this is almost unheard of. A very experienced camel vet from Colorado explained post procedure that she has never been able to successfully insert a catheter into a camel vein w/out stripping back layers of skin, muscle and tissue to visually expose the vein. We were tremendously fortunate.
Over the next few days, we administered IV fluids to the mother while bottle feeding her baby girl. Each IV session took over two hours. Blood tests revealed that she was getting worse. We kept giving fluids... we just kept giving fluids.
Slowly, the mother started to show little signs of improvement. A little cud chewing, a lot of urinating, eating small camel droppings from other camels... it helps balance beneficial stomach bacteria. Still supplementing the calf with bottles of formula, we continued to administer IV fluids for days. We discontinued fluids once the catheter became unserviceable... eight days from the start.
Again, we were fortunate, for ours was typically a three day catheter. We took another blood test to determine our next coarse of action. If she was still failing then maybe it was time to let her go. Although really wasn't making milk for her baby at all any more but we did not have the heart to take her away from her. If she was going to die, at least she would have her baby that she treasured until the end. To keep the baby healthy, we stood by the mother's udders each time the calf asked for milk and snuck in a bottle.
The blood test came back with some improvement. She was also eating, drinking and chewing cud. We opted to give the mother a break from another catheter procedure. We visually monitored her every two to four hours observing drinking, cud chewing and eating. The best sign of improvement came when her daughter, now named Princess Jasmine, snubbed her nose at our offering of a bottle. Mom wasn't giving much milk but she was giving some and giving it as often as she could. Baby Jasmine was giving us our walking papers!
Mom has been off the IV now for four days and is doing better and better each day. Tonight, I stood quietly and watched the mother nurse Jasmine. Her udder was larger, fuller. The baby drank for a good, long time before settling down to sleep. That is a very good sign that she got plenty of milk. We will be doing more blood work and are hopeful mom will have a healthy recovery.
VALENTINE'S NIGHT...
As intense as this drama was, it was interrupted by a critical, dangerous birth. February 14th, the night of the big snow (remember, this is San Diego County) Gil woke up around Midnight with a sense of urgency. He dressed fast and went down to check the maternity pen. He didn't come back right away. Then I heard a lot of water running downstairs so I too went to see what was going on. Before I could get to the mud room, I could hear Gil's voice over the sound of the filling bathtub. All he said was "Belina had her baby". His voice was faint and sad.
When I walked around the corner to the bathroom, there was Gil, crouched in front of the tub cradling a little, stiff, dark grey calf. He had found her in the snow (the San Diego snow) stiff, motionless and silent. He carried her into the house, neck and limbs frozen in the positions they had been in when she was found in the snow. He placed her in the tub and began filling it with warm water.
We don't know why her mom left her. We think the freak storm might have thrown her off. The mother had been eating and acting normal the entire previous day! And I know this because we were with her and all the camels battening down the hatches during the blizzard (the San Di-fricken-ego blizzard.) Although the mother left her own baby, she was very interested in Jasmine; following her grunting softly. We are guessing that when mom went to bond with her newborn, Jasmine was in the way and she bonded to her instead.
Gil and I worked together, leaning over the tub for forty-five minutes warming and rubbing the tiny calf. She slowly began to move and breathe, gurgly at first, but breathe non-the less. We moved her to the garage and worked with her for two and a half hours rubbing her with dry towels and warming her with blow dryers. Movement came slowly but she improved minute by minute. Still, even as much as two hours into it, you could slip your finger into her mouth and feel her ICE COLD gums. As her gums began to thaw, her lips and mouth started moving. Finally, three hours later, she sipped a full, warm pint of colostrum (first milk) from a small bottle. She was ready to sleep.
WE were ready to sleep! She was so tiny, fragile and precious that we just couldn't leave her. We inflated a single airbed, placed it on the floor next to her and slept right there... Gil's arm around me and my arm around her. We slept for two hours until we were awakened by her sweet, insistent cry. She was hungry! Her name is Valentine and she is a little miracle. Gil loves her. He saved her. She is his baby girl.
Our "nursery" is a 16-foot horse trailer we keep bedded w/ burmuda grass hay. Kabir (a bull calf we acquired from another ranch before Christmas) Sparkle and Valentine sleep in there each night. When Gil goes in the trailer, he sits on the floor and she literally climbs into his lap to go to sleep.
HERE WE GO AGAIN...
Baby girl number four was born on Tuesday the 19th of February. Her mother, Sheba is a GREAT MOM who has had several textbook-perfect births.We were so relieved to finally have a birth where we could just watch and relax while mom did all the work. But the baby wasn't coming out quite right. We kept seeing a little nose (correction... BIG nose) pop in and out but no feet. The feet should come out w/ the nose or first.
Gil pulled on a long exam glove so he could check inside the mother. When Sheba was relaxed, he reached in and felt a nose but no feet. Instead he felt the rounded bones of two fetlock joints. The baby was in the birth canal with her fetlocks (kind of like her wrists) bent over. The baby can't be born with folded feet... it makes them too large to pass. So Gil felt around and worked inside until he could get the little feet (correction... BIG feet) forward. With the head and forelegs mostly out, Sheba laid back on the ground and delivered the baby. The calf slid out easily. She was GI-NORMOUS! We were so excited to have our fourth girl and such a big healthy baby born to such a perfect mother.
But with each attempt this very strong, healthy calf made to stand, our hearts slipped from triumphant joy to fearful dismay. Her very long, very large front legs must have been cramped inside the mother. As a result, her tendons where very, VERY tight. She could not extend her front legs properly and when she did manage a wobbly stand, her little fetlocks would double over ... it was like she was standing on her knuckles.
Over the next two hours, she began to regress. She went from a strong, determined baby to an exhausted one. Luckily, Sheba is one of our milking camels so, when her calf gave up, we hand-milked mom and brought the mountain to Mohammad. We let the baby lay on the ground while we gave her a bottle of warm camel colostrum fresh from mom. The calf's tight tendons where just too much for her to battle with while trying to learn to nurse. Plus, Sheba's teats are H-U-G-E. Her little mouth would not open wide enough to suckle them. (Possibly also a tight tendon problem related to being such a large baby)So there we were again, bottling another baby! We milked mom twice a day and fed the calf every two hours. The vet, who had been called as soon as we could see the birth was proceeding less than perfectly, suggested the baby would straighten out and get better with time.... just so long as we could keep feeding her while she couldn't feed herself. She aslo suggested she might be temporarily suffering from a condition known in horse foals as Dummy Foal Syndrome. This can occur when the baby is in the birth canal for a long time under great pressure. After birth, the brain temporarily swells. This causes the foal to act lythargic, unaware and uncoordinated.
Well, it is Sunday, day four of Princess Knuckles’ (I know...it is a horrible name but we are exhausted and a little punchy) life at the dairy and her little legs are straightening and strengthening.
She is trying to nurse from her mother and as of this morning, has nursed twice with the help of Gil supporting and guiding her. We are thrilled and relieved.Which reminds me... it is 12:16 and I need to trudge back out in the rain and help knuckles eat her lunch.
I know this all sounds sort of horrific but it really isn't. Like I said it feels like a war... but a war we are winning. We haven’t lost a mother or calf and out of our first four births, all four are females, which is incredible. The calves are playful and beautiful and smart. The war is not over yet... we have two more mothers due in the next one to four weeks. But we have learned so much and are so incredibly vigilant; I am feeling good about our coarse of action and the births ahead.
And I am looking forward to April!
Camels and Snow... an unusual combination!
