6 inch miscarriage...?

[savannahsatchel]

I'm am very confused. No theory I come up with makes sense.

I got home from work tonight at 6, I checked all of my cages as usual, giving everyone their evening veggies. I picked up the house in my girls cage, and there was a baby guinea pig... It was dead. I instantly broke down crying. I'm still having trouble breathing as I'm typing this. I have so many things running through my head.

How did one of them get pregnant?
Which one was it?
Why is this baby 6 inches long, twice the size of the babies I helped deliver 3 months ago?
When was it delivered?
How could I have allowed myself to miss the birth?
Could I have saved this baby?
Was it born alive or was it a miscarriage?
Did one of my girls kill it?

The part that has mentally torn me down, is the fact that my girls were eating it. The eye and half of this baby's face is gone. Its intestines are showing. I don't know if this is guinea pig instinct or was this an act of violence?

I've tried researching online exactly w h a t could have possibly happened, but I'm finding no answers. I know no one will know just by reading this especially because they are my babies and I don't even know what has happened. None of it makes sense. I more-so just needed to tell someone about this that would understand the heartbreak. None of my friends or family understand the love I have for these animals.

RIP precious little baby. I'm so sorry that I couldn't do more.

When my boyfriend gets home from school, I'm going to go bury him/her. I just can't stop crying. It was a major shock I wasn't expecting and even though I found the baby dead, I just feel that connection with him/her. I'm so sorry baby.

 

[bpatters]

I'm not so sure it's instinct. Sometimes a young, first-time mom will go overboard cleaning off the sac that the baby is born in, and there's damage to the pup. It is NOT instinct for them to eat dead pups, as most pigs don't do that. And they definitely do NOT kill their young.

The first thing I'd do is turn all the adults over and compare their private parts. There's a male somewhere, for sure.

The only way you may be able to tell which one delivered is by looking at the nipples. The recently pregnant sow may have larger nipples or you may see milk leaking from them.

Since it was a very large pup, it likely was too large to have been delivered in a timely fashion, and that's why it died. Actually, you're lucky that the sow was able to deliver it, as one of the main causes of maternal death in guinea pigs is the attempted delivery of a pup that's too large to fit through the birth canal.

There is absolutely nothing you could have done to save the pup. And as for letting yourself miss the birth, if you didn't know the sow was pregnant, how on earth could you have known to watch for a delivery?

I'm sorry the pup died. But beating yourself up over something you had no control over isn't helping the pup, the adult pigs, or you. It serves no purpose at all.

 

[stray hares]

Larger babies are more likely to be stillborn. I think it's because they take longer to come out, they run out of oxygen, it takes the mother longer to push them out, etc. Singleton pregnancies are also more likely to be larger than multiple pups as well. I don't think there's anything you could have done, please be kind to yourself.

You were lucky with a large single pup that mum is still okay. I've had a rescue piggy give birth to a 134 gram baby unassisted, and I've heard of pups as big as 150 grams being born with assistance. But it's always scary and could easily result in stillbirths or mothers who just don't make it.

I'm sorry about your little pup though, but as I said, be kind to yourself.