Mar 30 • Health and Wellness
Farming isn’t always pretty — Vikki's Case
This is one of those posts people don’t like to write, but they need to be written anyway.
Viki aborted at day 26.
By the time I got to her, I already knew what I was walking into. The kits had been dead for days—likely around day 21–23—and she was now stuck trying to pass them. Water had already broken, and she was covered in that rank, sour smell that tells you things have gone wrong long before you got there.
At that point, you don’t stand there hoping it fixes itself. You get to work.
I cleaned her up first—chlorhexidine around the vulva just to get ahead of the contamination as much as possible—then gloved up and started checking. Palpation, checking the canal, making sure nothing was lodged. You have to know what’s in there before you start pushing anything. If something’s stuck and you force contractions, you’ll tear her up.
She was already sitting in infection risk, so I gave Penicillin G. This is why we keep a relationship with a vet and keep meds on hand—because there’s no time to go hunting for it when you’re standing in the middle of something like this.
Once I knew nothing was blocking, I used oxytocin to help her clear. Tiny dose. Wait. Watch. Recheck. She needed a second round before everything finally started moving the way it should.
While all of this was going on, I was trying to keep her steady.
I mixed up a slurry—crushed Tums, sugar, probiotics, and added a little plain yogurt to make it something she’d actually take. I syringed about 6 cc into her cheek pocket first, just to make sure something got into her, then offered the rest in an eggshell.
She took to the shell on her own—chewing, licking at it, getting a little more calcium in her system without me having to force it. Sometimes that’s the difference. Getting them to participate instead of just fighting them.
Because when they’re under that kind of strain, they can crash fast.
If calcium drops, contractions weaken. If contractions weaken, nothing clears. And then you’re in real trouble.
She passed 9 kits total. None of them were alive.
And yeah… it’s not pretty. It’s not the part people like to post pictures of. There’s no clean, tidy version of it.
It’s a doe standing there exhausted, covered in fluid that shouldn’t smell like that, and you doing what needs to be done to get her through it.
But she cleared.
And that’s the win in a case like this.
I’ll link the step-by-step breakdown and video in the comments for anyone who wants to see exactly how it was handled.
Because this stuff happens.
And when it does, you don’t get time to hesitate.
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Farming isn’t always pretty — Vikki's Case
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