Cria Watch!

The birthing dates of Ruth Hussey and Trellianna have come and gone. Hussey was due on Monday while Anna was due yesterday. Both females are fat and happy and looks like it'll be sometime in the next few days.

Anna... Fat & Happy!

In the meantime, Amadora was bred this morning to Wira Cocha, a date which lasted 27 minutes from 11:33 am to 12:00 noon. She was our very first cria to be born back on Sept. 5, 2006. It's hard to believe that our little girl is all grown up! I use 350 days as a gestation calculator so if all goes well that puts her due date at Oct. 15th of 2009.

Amadora then.....

And now......

With the fall breeding and birthing season in full swing, we will continue our cria watch as well as a Halloween breeding for Shakira. We'll keep you posted!

Update!

Angeline, prettiest girl I've ever seen!

Angeline's eye is looking better cosmetically, although I believe she has lost sight in it. The eye got worse before it got better but I kept putting the dilator and triple antibiotic ointments in daily for over 2 weeks. Slowly but surely the eye appeared to be getting better. However, when I ran my hand across her damaged eye she didn't blink. I'm afraid she is blind but on a positive note, the eye did not have to be removed. As you can see in the picture, the damaged left eye does not open as wide as the one on the right but, I think she'll be okay as she is now running and playing and shows no difficulty navigating or interacting with the herd.

My Buddy Romeo

Romeo's poop problem was fixed in just about 3 days. I think he got into a bad weed or something. On top of the diarrhea, he was vomiting after eating grain which had me concerned so I kept him off the sweet feed for 10 days. The other boys weren't happy because I left them off the feed as well. They kept wondering why the "girls" were getting it but not them! Ten days later they got their daily ration and I have to say things are back to normal. The only thing I can think of was that while the vet was here to look at Angeline's eye, I had him draw blood for ARI registration. I went to the house to get the ARI blood cards and before I could tell the vet to draw the blood from the tail, he had already taken a sample from the neck. I think Romeo may have had his esophagus damaged. He's fine now but next time it'll be from the tail.

Our 1st Farm Crisis

We suffered our first setback here on our farm. Just as things were rocking along our newest born cria Angeline suffered a major eye injury. Last Saturday evening I checked on the herd just before retiring and everything was fine. The next morning Angeline's eye was swollen and cloudy. I called the vet and he said to put triple antibiotic ointment in the eye every 3-4 hours. The eye was worse come Monday and the vet came up to take a look. He said the eye was ulcerated and possibly ruptured and that she was most likely kicked or she ran into something. He said it was "iffy" that the eye could be saved. He gave us some atropine sulfate ophthalmic ointment which relaxes muscles in the eye causing the pupil to widen (dilate). It also is used to relieve pain caused by swelling and inflammation of the eye.

This is how she looked on Monday:

We are putting the antibiotic ointment in every 3-4 hours and the dilator twice a day. It is very frustrating to see her like this as she is just over a week old and so sweet and innocent. We are hoping she pulls through this with minimal damage.

To make matters worse one of our boys, Romeo, had a case of diarrhea which is not normal and can be a serious problem.

Alpacas are ruminant animals which means they have multiple specialized stomachs which allow the animal to digest fibrous materials. The one of special interest is the rumen which is quite large and is where bacterial digestion occurs to break down material that would otherwise be indigestible. Think of ruminant digestion as sort of like a bacterial digestion factory instead of like us humans (digest chemically, with only a little help from beneficial bacteria). What this means is, it is possible to mess up the bacteria in the alpaca's gut and rumen and they will starve to death with a full stomach. The rumen is designed to house and take care of its bacteria population.

While the vet was here I had him do fecal exams on the herd. We were good except for a moderate case of the strongyle worm. This is a very common parasite of alpacas and he recommended I treat the herd with Cydectin which I did.

Romeo is now pooping beans which is what I want to see. However, he vomited twice after feeding him grain. I will suspend feeding him grain for about 10 days hoping that will clear it up. I think his system is a little out of whack and I want to give him a break from the sweet feed for a little while. He seems to be acting normal with no signs of lethargy; he's eating hay with no problem and playing with the boys as usual. I will follow up with his status in a week or so.