Posted By: kitsune
SM can happen to anyone - 12/13/11 01:00 PM
I've never dealt with SM before, and I've thanked my lucky stars many times for that. Now, I can no longer say that.
My Lucy was just weaning her last set of joeys, they are 7 weeks. I heard odd noises the night before, but I checked them and everyone was ok. Took Lucy out for a kiss on the head, put her back. Last night I was pulling the boys out for some pouch training out and about and instead of pulling out one of the boys, I pulled out Lucy's limp body. She was still warm. Her pouch was torn open. I'm going to get her in for a necropsy, but my guess is she may have had mastitis. The boys are very upset and crabby. I put them with their daddy.
My point of this post is that there was no warning. The strange noises may have been a precursor, but there were none today. Her pouch was a little droopy, but these boys were her 14th and 15th joeys, and she was due to retire after these two. I didn't really think anything of the pouch, it didn't look irritated. She went from bright-eyed and bushy tailed to...what I found, 2 hours later. Lucy had no history of injuries or SM. She's been so healthy that she's only been to the vet for checkups. Please be vigilant with your little ones, especially mamas that may be showing discomfort. You never think it will happen to you until it does. Be prepared, keep an ecollar and jacket...I keep thinking to myself if I'd only caught her before she'd done too much damage, I could have saved her.
My Lucy was just weaning her last set of joeys, they are 7 weeks. I heard odd noises the night before, but I checked them and everyone was ok. Took Lucy out for a kiss on the head, put her back. Last night I was pulling the boys out for some pouch training out and about and instead of pulling out one of the boys, I pulled out Lucy's limp body. She was still warm. Her pouch was torn open. I'm going to get her in for a necropsy, but my guess is she may have had mastitis. The boys are very upset and crabby. I put them with their daddy.
My point of this post is that there was no warning. The strange noises may have been a precursor, but there were none today. Her pouch was a little droopy, but these boys were her 14th and 15th joeys, and she was due to retire after these two. I didn't really think anything of the pouch, it didn't look irritated. She went from bright-eyed and bushy tailed to...what I found, 2 hours later. Lucy had no history of injuries or SM. She's been so healthy that she's only been to the vet for checkups. Please be vigilant with your little ones, especially mamas that may be showing discomfort. You never think it will happen to you until it does. Be prepared, keep an ecollar and jacket...I keep thinking to myself if I'd only caught her before she'd done too much damage, I could have saved her.