FOSTERING- A QUICK UPDATE

Beulah and Bobby Dazzler are just fine....  so thats good. Bettina and her cria Bliss have continued to be a bit of an ongoing saga... yesterday I noticed Ena feeding another cria as well as her own. Bettina has virtually no milk and Bliss refused to take a bottle preferring to suck on mums no-milk teats and was losing weight and energy.  So I took the decision to take Bliss away from Bettina and stable her with Ena and her cria and see what happened... with bottled milk as back up too of course.  During the course of the day Bliss got more and more confident and started taking the odd suckle from Ena... fingers crossed it may work then.  Thought I might try putting the two pairs together in a paddock for the night and maybe Bliss would have her mum for comfort and Ena for milk.  I was wrong - she just spent all night trying to nurse off Bettina and lost the weight she had gained the day before.

We learn constantly with these animals.... So, this morning I put Ena, and Eros (her cria) and Bliss in a stable and have left them there tonight too. After just a few attempts Bliss is feeding one side and Eros the other ... sorry I don't have a picture to show you as I forgot the camera, but very cute as you can imagine.  I really hope this will continue and Ena will foster Bliss, I will weigh both crias every day and keep a very close watch on Ena too of course. Would be great if it worked wouldn't it?!  Have any of you had similar success?

1 comment:

  1. Well done Karen! We had a maiden a couple of years ago who didn't seem to mind who she was feeding, but we were lucky in that it was just an added bonus rather than a necessity for the cria involved. Hope it's still going well.Sue

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