New baby and new nails (Paul)

Evening everyone,

Tonights blog title is in 2 parts as I'll explain, of course Twitter followers will be a step ahead on the first at least!

On the new nails, I'll let Debbie explain that one!  She's been off doing lady type things with one of my (female) business partners.  It's not often she does such things, about once every 6 years or so.

So lucky me was in charge of the 'shop'. In true alpaca style because I had some exam scripts to mark, when I did 'the rounds' at noon I was met by a bit of a surprise in the livery girls field.  I counted 3 little heads, which was a little odd as there were only 2 there earlier!  Even more odd was the colour of the third head, it was the 'wrong' colour!

Before I reveal the awaited photos, I'd like to thank the Twitter followers for their guesses on who and what colour the new baby was, especially @giddiupchicken, you know who you are! Thanks also to @shortclaws, @alifeinwellies and @rachellynd - hope to meet you all soon!

So here is the surprise:

Mum is Warralinga Gorge Winter Snow (white) mated to Bozedown Rodrigues (white) so it was a bit of a surprise that a fawn girl was on the grass!  Actually this happened to us in 2009 with Barnacre Sandstorm, the newest addition to our elite stud line up - check out his explosive genetics - it's like a who's who of the alpaca greats!  Snow was only on 325 days pregnancy and her little fawn lady is very down on her pasterns, neither is Snow letting her feed.

Despite that the little fawn girl still wanted to play with the other two cria in the livery field.  But who is that looking over the fence?  It's our Supreme Champion and stud male, Legend of Spartacus! The camera can be deceiving and he is actually on the other side of our 'channel' which is 20-22 feet wide (6 to 6.7 metres).  They are a bit young for you yet Legend!

After watching the fawn cria for 2-3 hours (I hate interferring unless I have to) the cria started to go 'flat' so I administered 'kick start' and some frozen colostrum that we have in the freezer (from one of our alpacas that we milked).  Soon after Debbie was back on duty and we led Snow and cria down the hill into our new barn where we will be able to keep close to proceedings over night.  When I say 'we' you know what I mean...

Debbie has just gone out to give the cria some milk because Snow still isn't letting her feed.  She weighs 7.29kg so despite being premature she is a good size.  Apparantly Snow has done something similar with her last 3 cria - strange?

Any how, we have more visitors arriving tomorrow who are staying with us, I'm sure there will be some pictures...oh yes and when I was watching today's new fawn cria I took some great photos of 'North, South, East and West' to try and give you some perspective of the hill.  If I get chance tomorrow night I'll post another blog and the photos - if not it will be Sunday!

Night all.  Paul.