I'm happy to say that we are finally seeing an improvement! Yesterday the hand feeding went incredibly smoothly with Feather even taking a few syringefuls himself. He's also not showing any signs of pain anymore.
Now after two weeks of syringe feeding I was beginning to seriously worry about Feathers teeth and digestive system. Since he was looking so well I decided to run an experiment. I gave him his last syringe feed at 6 pm, taking his total for the day up 190 mL's. Then I sat with him for a while shoving different foods in his mouth getting him to bite and chew. Finally I filled his cage with as many types of fresh foo I could think of and left him for the night.
His weight was still steady in the morning at 787g! So I gave him more fresh food and have left him to fend for himself today with hourly weight checks. He's still not drinking as much as he should so he's getting some water syringed but it looks like I won't need to syringe feed. He's munching away and eating both his dry feed and his hay and veggies/grass. Hopefully once he gets back into the habit of eating he'll finally start to gain weight. I'm keeping a very close eye on his weight and weighing hourly just in case he starts to slide backwards but so far things are looking good!
We have less then 48 hours to his next vet appointment. I was really unsure if I'd get him through this week but it looks like we'll make it, and with a noticeable improvement.
So the next step is his x-ray on Monday at 4. If it shows a clear abdomen I'll organise for his bladder stone surgery. If it shows a cloudy abdomen still I'll arrange for exploratory surgery, hopefully include bladder stone removal.
The vets are excellent and are open 8am-7 pm weekdays so if I can arrange for the surgery on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday I can drop him off on my way to class and collect him on my way home at about 4.
In other news me and Manny are having fun. He's a very hyperactive boy and spends hours running in circles around his cage and popcorning. Making him sit still on the grooming stand is an interesting experience. Looking at his coat I'm hoping we can go another few weeks before he needs wrappers, so I don't have to worry about them until after the July show. I'm thinking I'll start him off one cotton voile wrappers, which is one of the lightest fabrics. I'm still debating where he'll need a corflute insert or if I could do the wrappers almost like ponytails. We're having a bit of an issue with kicking out too. No one seems to know how to discourage kicking, so I guess we'll just keep trying and see where it gets us. I'm wondering if a toy would calm him down a bit. Like one of those metal balls you fill with hay or something?
Interestingly I realised that Rosie has actually turned into a semi-decent rex. I bought her as a pet and her coat was sooo soft, I'm almost disappointed it's gotten so coarse. So I'm going to try her in the pedigree class in July and see what the judge thinks of her. I have no real knowledge of rex, all I can really say is she has a hemmed ear and fair type. So if Manny can't cope with wrapping I'll still have a couple of pedigrees to show until Ayanna's babies are ready for the table (which probably won't be till Feb next year). I'd like to try Manny at one show at least, and even if he doesn't take to wrapping his coat could stay unwrapped until the August show, as he'd be just twelve weeks then.
So for the July show I've entered Symphonia Rosaline in the rex class, Symphonia Laertes in the dally class and Eddie's coming along as a pet. It's such a pity we don't have clipped long classes, but it would be too weird to go to a show without my boy, so he'll be a pet at this show. I'm still annoyed I had to cut him off, I was finally getting the hang of wrapping him. I also have plans for my Fancy Dress entry and my Decorated Carry cage entry, but they are far to top secret even for a blog that no one reads.
Oh and little Nia is doing well. She's already at 450g. She seems to be one of those pigs that can get fat on air. She's getting plenty of exercise in the girls cage, but you can see her growing hour by hour LOL. So it looks like she'll go in with La-La the minute she hits three months.
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