Terrible thing happened.. pregnant mini donkey, starts labour at home in stable, quickly apparent to owner who was there something is wrong, Calls the vet from the Equine practice down the road. Vet comes (newly qualified) says foal is big, upside down and cant find the head, tries for half an hour to find it, then rings a colleague, another young vet who then comes out (another half an hour). Takes one look and says this likely to be a poor outcome. Then tries again. Says only option a cesarian. Then the bombshell, they don't do cesarians she's got to go to Leahurst. No transport, its now 11pm and no one answering phone. Still pushing and pulling and mini donkey going into shock.
At midnight owner asks vet for advice, foal now likely dead and mum 10% chance survival WITH cesarian at leahurst (no transport and 45 mins away). No choice but euthanasia.....very distressing. The point is this WHY cant they do a routine cesarian?? should the vets have told the owner (who was ringing for a difficult NOT normal foaling) they don't do cesarians so they could find another vet who did, OR they had longer to find transport. Should the second vet have told the first vet get it to Leahurst, when they knew how bad the presentation was???