Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose

We had kind of a rough morning on Tuesday. One of our Archangel daughters, Bellafina (maternal daughter of our dearly departed PPPeruvian Pachelbel and the dam of CCNF Pachelbel, Bellerophon, and Expialidocious), who was out grazing an outer paddock with our large group of pregnant females due later in the year, was found to be miscarrying her pregnancy. The harsh reality is that with 60 to 75 females due here every year, we always expect to see some of this sort of thing, it’s just par for the course. Of course as often as not, it’s one of our more valuable animals that this stuff happens to!

Not due until mid October, Bellafina’s cria was nowhere near viable, so that was never in question. The questions that were at hand though were what had caused the pregnancy to terminate — sometimes you get a satisfactory answer, sometimes you don’t — and also more importantly to us in the immediate aftermath, why was poor Bellafina lying on her side shaking in the first few hours following the miscarriage?  The delivery of the cria/fetus had required some assistance from Jennifer, with one horn of the placenta already hanging out when we first found Bellafina. Jen actually had to go in through the placenta to get to the cria and get it through the cervix, then help Belly deliver the rest of the pregnancy, which all stayed interconnected throughout. Though gruesome for it’s own obvious reasons (see picture #1 below), it was not as though there had been any large amount of blood involved (not that was visible externally at least) so we were on pins and needles for quite a while until Bellafina started to show signs that she was slowly returning to her normal and it must be said, slightly ornery, self later that afternoon and evening. Belly’s body temperature was normal throughout though and within a couple hours of the delivery, she was gingerly (and briefly) standing up to drink water and munch on some hay we had brought into the Arena’s warm room for her. On our vet’s advice, we did also administer both Banamine as well as some injectable antibiotics: the former to deal with pain and inflammation from the delivery, the latter to fight off the possibility of infection.

As for the fetus and pregnancy itself, we feel fortunate that this was one of those occasions when we were able to find a proverbial smoking gun. The umbilical cord had somehow become so twisted (see photo #2), that it was pretty clear that the blood supply to the cria had been cut off resulting in fetal death and the subsequent miscarriage. Though obviously still disappointing (the little boy was to be Bellerophon’s full sibling), it’s always a relief in such situations when we can point to something fairly obvious and more importantly, something seemingly out of our control. Though we’ve certainly seen our fair share of miscarriages over the years, this particular scenario was a new one of sorts. We hope not to see another one like it again anytime soon…

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Bellafina's 7+ month fetus still attached to the placenta.
Picture #1: Bellafina’s 7+ month fetus, still attached to the placenta.

 

A closeup of the twisted umbilical cord.
Picture #2: a closeup of the twisted umbilical cord.

3 Comments

  1. Hi Ian,
    Thank you for this blog. I see the usefulness/education for many breeders. At our farm we have only had 2 females miscarry at the same 5mths gestation and happened 5 days apart. Never found out the “why” but suspected that they ate something they shouldn’t have (perhaps buttercup flowers that were not dry enough in the hay-buttercup are toxic usually only when fresh)since they were the piggiest eaters in the herd and the other pregnant females were fine. I agree it is nice to have an answer and to know it was out of your control. You asked why the girl would be shaking. I have seen this in both the miscarriages but also with a few other females that birthed normally. I personally experienced it after a pretty quick labor with my 3rd son. My theory is that sometimes the hormones get severally out of whack most likely from a quicker onset of the labor/delivery. I’d be interested to hear if others have experienced the shaking/shivering of their females.
    Sue @ Joyful Journey Alpacas
    Hayward, WI

    1. Hi Sue,

      Thanks for reading! Yeah, we too have had some miscarriages in the past where the consumption of a toxic plant was at least added to the list of possible culprits.

      In thinking about Bellafina’s delivery a bit more, we realized that she was probably, as much as anything, left in pain and/or very fatigued from having spent a considerable amount of time pushing with nothing to show for it and that that was what the shaking/shivering was most likely about. When Jen “went in,” she found the fetus/cria turned on it’s side, nowhere near a normal presentation. Bellafina was essentially trying to push the baby out sideways which was never going to happen, given its size. It was just very disconcerting to see a female down like that afterward, as this is a species that prides itself on masking weakness. She had to have been in some *serious* pain/discomfort to not essentially want to stand for more than an hour. In contrast, we’ve seen other females post-partum that had some serious vaginal tears and bleeding from the delivery pop right up after the birth as though nothing had happened…

      Hope you have a good summer, take care…-Ian

  2. Hi Ian,

    I’ve just started reading your blog—finding it very informative. My husband & I are just starting our alpaca venture and are trying to absorb every bit of information/education we can. We look forward to following your experiences so that we’ll hopefully be a bit more prepared should we encounter the same situations.

    Thanks for sharing…

    Sue Raymond
    Autumn Leaves Farm Alpacas
    Bethlehem, NH

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