Fatty Boombah is a premature flying-fox pup who was delivered by caesarean section after his mother ripped up the roof of her mouth chewing herself off barbed wire. Fatty BB has fur and tiny teeth just coming through his gums, a small forearm and is quite a heavy weight for his bone size. Premature babies are iffy to keep alive but he's quite strong and was doing well for the first 24 hours.
He has a strong suck but his suck-swallow coordination isn't great, and he gets tired easily, so he can't take much milk at a time without losing his coordination and snotting the milk out his nose.
He's being fed with his head downwards to make sure he doesn't breathe any milk into his lungs; one drop of milk at a time, slowly dripped down the side of his dummy so he doesn't have to suck, only swallow.
Fatty BB did less well during his second day. His breathing was more laboured, and around midnight he stopped feeding. He just refused to suck anymore. I gave him some warmed subcutaneous fluids and some oral glucose, and let him sleep for 6 hours.
In the morning his breathing was laboured and intermittent; he hadn't passed urine overnight and was unconscious.
I raced him off to the vet but he was barely alive when we arrived. He was euthanased because he was struggling to breathe, and only breathing intermittently. It was a blessing that his tiny body didn't have to struggle further.
Premature babies are touchy and difficult to raise and die easily from things we can't see or know till it has happened.
Fatty BB developed a rampant case of thrush in his mouth overnight which would have been part of why he stopped being interested in taking his feeds.
RIP Fatty Boombah. I'm sorry you couldn't stay with me for long.
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