For those not already following on Facebook, the new animal sanctuary near me is currently grieving and on lockdown after the sudden deaths of eight potbellied pigs over the past 72 hours. There were no symptoms, no indicator anything was wrong - they were mostly found snuggled in their hay in their cosy shelters as if they were sleeping.
Sudden deaths like this could be caused by numerous factors, and believe me when I say that Lucie and those closest to her have considered absolutely everything and have been over every square inch of the property.
The Animal Health Centre in Abbotsford, the government agricultural lab for BC, is currently analyzing tissue samples from the first three, plus doing full autopsies of two pigs who died in the early hours this morning and who I transported over there today. We hope to have some preliminary results soon, though the full report will take a week to ten days.
As the sanctuary must decline all donations of food until this is resolved, and has had the added horrendous cost of multiple emergency vet visits, autopsies, etc., any financial donation you can make would be most welcome. You'll find their donation link on their website here .
Run free, Timothy, Zoe, Webster, Bella, Dolly, Guinness, Josie and Buster. I wish we'd had more time to get to know each other.
9 comments:
Such sad news, especially as life was supposed to be better for all animals on the island. I can not imagine the hell Lucie must be going through, especially not knowing what caused this.
Hope she will get answers soon, I will take a look at my budget and send what I can
This is heart breaking :( I hope they find answers soon and that they can recover from the financial blow...
This is a very sorrowful loss and Tragedy for the Sanctuary. So sorry.
What a sad turn of events. I sure hope they can determine what caused this. My sympathies to friends of the sanctuary and everyone at the sanctuary.
And run free Daisy, Jengo, Hannah, Lola and Mortimer. A total of thirteen pigs passed away. The good news is that there have been no more deaths in the past 24 hours, since starting a course of rarely-used injections after vets gathered them from all over the island and other islands. The fact this med works, points to the likelihood of a poison, though that does not necessarily mean anything malicious. Please keep your fingers and paws crossed.
Poison of some sort is the first possibility that comes to mind...
Please keep us posted,what a great job RASTA does.
There have been no additional deaths beyond the 13 that passed last week. Results from the tests have been coming in, and have ruled out all viral and bacterial infections, which leaves poisons as the cause. Please note that does not necessarily mean some evil person has intentionally poisoned them, though that is one of several possible sources of course, including naturally occurring toxins. Toxicology results from a lab in the States will hopefully pinpoint the exact poison.
For everyone's peace of mind, I sure hope the lab can determine the cause of this. I've been following RASTA's FaceBook page for updates.
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