I got up as soon as I could but I was still suffering from the sleepless night of worry on Saturday/Sunday. Josh and Neil assured me the cria were all fine and the rain had stopped so I was quietly optimistic. With Elsie not well we decided to give her a bottle a day. My first stop was the barn. She was cwtched up behind the hay and very pleased to have the bottle. She drank half. She will get the other half later. I couldn’t put it off any longer, I had to go down to the alpacas. I hoped everyone would be alright.
I went over the bridge that spans the brook. I came out from the trees and saw Luna and Zippy in the corner looking out facing me. As I got closer I saw a little brown cria sitting up and a little black cria, also sitting up. Finally, Chrissie came into view with a little fawn cria sitting up. Phew. Everyone seemed to have made it through the night! I had to try to weigh them to give us an idea how they all were.
I got the scales and harness from the shelter and took my waterproof coat off. It was warmer than I expected and dry so I only needed that if it rained. Zippy and Garth Maul were nearest. Awesome. She’s over protective. I should have kept the coat on. A bite through all that padding wouldn’t register. Zippy only bites when she thinks we are interfering with her babies. She tends to bite heads as we would be bending down to harness the cria, not paying attention to her. Hood on then. She could smell my fear too, the bugger. I flapped my arms at her. Nothing. I blew on her face but she still didn’t move. I hadn’t even harnessed him up yet and I was nervous. I don’t like pain. “Hel, you can do this!” I gave myself a pep talk and tried to tuck the harness under him. He was whinging and complaining. Zippy spat so I shouted. It would have made great comedy footage. The more I rushed, the more he wriggled and complained. This caused me to rush more and fumble with the harness. Garth Maul wriggled free. I had to start again. I tried my best to put the harness right, while I was concentrating Zippy bit my hood and pulled. “OW!” I screamed. She did back off slightly then. I took the opportunity and lifted him up. He is heavy to hold at height. The scales failed to settle but was pretty much hovering around 9.98kg. He was 10kg yesterday so that was OK. Hennessey next. She seems very chilled. Either that or tired.
This is Luna’s first cria. She did really well bless her. Hennessey is beautiful and will always remind us of or qualification to the World Cup. We named her after the Welsh goalkeeper who had the best game ever. She was dry and fluffy. I don’t know how after being born in the rain. I picked her up. She’s tall but so is Luna. Luna came right up to me and was about 2 inches from my face. Personal space love! “It’s only me and I’m checking your baby.” She was happy with my answer. I lifted Hennessey but struggled to get her high enough off the ground. It’s a great feeling when someone 12 hours old has longer legs than me. Good job I don’t have self esteem issues 😂 8.6kg more or less but the scales wouldn’t settle again. Not good, Josh weighed her at 9.4kg yesterday. Something wasn’t right. I rang him. “I’ll come up now.” “Great, I’ll feed them all after I’ve weighed Lilibet” Neil also suggested bringing a bottle for Lilibet too.
My harnessing work didn’t improve with Lilibet either but I tried. She was 8kg according to me so that was rubbish as well. Lilibet and Hennessey couldn’t have lost that much weight. I went to get Camelibra. Whilst there I decided to give the mammys some ewe nuts as well. I put those in a sweet tub. Garth Vader was anxious to have food. They didn’t get tea yesterday as it would have been ruined in the rain. No one is starving though. There’s grass everywhere. I fed the boys then and went back to the maternity ward. The mammys were hungry and appreciated the extra ewe nuts. They all tucked in!
Then I fed the other girls. They were hungry too. I was making my way through the crowd when Cloud ran in at full speed, she only just stopped in time to prevent colliding into me but did crash into a couple of other girls. Just as I finished that Josh arrived. He took his coat off and tackled Garth Maul in just a t-shirt. Brave. He pushed Zippy out of the way and weighed the little man. Still on 10kg so that’s great as he’s been weighed earlier today than yesterday. Next he weighed Hennessey. He got 8.6kg too. There was no way she lost that amount of weight. Luna’s udder was a similar size to Chrissie’s so 🤷♀️ We weighed Lilibet next. According to Josh she was still 8.5kg so that’s the same as yesterday which is OK after such nasty weather yesterday. We tried the bottle though to see if she was hungry. Not interested but went to suckle from mammy straight after. What to do with Lilibet is a major dilemma. Chrissie’s first cria Gwyn didn’t survive last year so we have to be so careful with Lilibet. We will feed her if necessary but the more she drinks from Chrissie, the more milk Chrissie will make. It’s such a delicate balancing act. For now we are going to continue with the weighing. Now the weather is also better, this should help too.
After dinner I went to drop some burgers to a school friend. We ended up having a quick cuppa to catch up. Lisa, I hope you don’t mind me mentioning you in the blog? The first thing she said was “How is Elsie?” Lisa enjoys reading the blog and told me I make her laugh and cry. I hope that’s good? She will be bringing her family for a walk, hopefully later next month. By the time we had finished all the roads were busy as it was school run time. I went to Garth Hall and the peace of the alpacas. Bliss. Neil said he wouldn’t be coming so it would be me and poo time 😁
I picked food up first and extra ewe nuts for the mammys. As I was feeding Leo and El Cap, Neil turned up. We went in to see the cria and decided they looked well. They were all anxious to get out. After a quick conversation with Josh we decided to let them all out. I left Neil to man the gate so I could drive the poover in. “Do alpacas steal each other’s babies?” “Potentially any animal will. Why?” “That grey one is after Hennessey” He’s useless with names but of course he remembered her name because of the football yesterday. 🤦♀️ He then left to drench the small lamb that’s mother died. I drove off to investigate Luna and Hennessey. Alpacas are naturally really inquisitive. When a cria is born, the aunties are like nosey neighbours and sometimes interfere. No wonder a new mother always stays separate with a cria. It’s to stop interference 😁I suspected this was what was happening. Because Luna unpacked in nasty rain, the others were sheltering. As soon as Josh saw them, he put them in so Hennessey was still new to her aunties when they came out. The other thing is that Luna is a new mother and sometimes forgets she has a cria. Hennessey is so chilled. She just lounges round sleeping. They were fine when I checked. But when I double checked before I left, Luna had wandered off grazing. I saw the moment when she remembered Hennessey and started looking. She had to go all the way back over to the place where Hennessey was fast asleep in amongst the buttercups. I’ll need to keep my eye on them!
I got down to poo picking and got loads done. Neil appeared at one point. He had drenched and vectocerted the lambing left her in the wellfield. He was off for an early night. It was a gorgeous evening so I carried on. I worked my way around the field, looking at the alpacas and cria interact. Lovely. I made my way towards the gate. There is always lots of poo here. It’s the area between the food troughs and water. I had 2 piles left and the hose wouldnt work properly. It is made rigid with plastic tubing and some of these were lose. It was nearly 7 and I had to feed Elsie and drop eggs of at Sar’s. I gave up. I’ll have to tackle it in the morning with Josh.
Just outside the wellfield I saw Baarbie, Baarbaara and the lamb that Neil had put in the wellfield. It’s going to learn to be naughty if it hangs round with those two. I secretly hope it’s getting milk from Baarbaara but I doubt it. I went in the wellfield in search of Elsie. She must have seen me because I could hear her calling me. I finally saw her. I called her but she stayed put and continued to call me. I got the bottle from the barn and waved it at her. She still wasn’t shifting so I walked to her. It was like Deliveroo or Just Eats! She enjoyed the bottle and is already plumping up a bit. (I’m sure Lisa will be pleased) I was done. I dropped the eggs at Sar’s, had a quick chat and I’d finished. Fingers crossed that all the cria have put weight on after an afternoon in the sunshine.
Helen x
