Not a weekend for text book births

Who said alpacas don't give birth at night?!

Friday night Willow was causing me a little concern, she had been moaning most of the afternoon, which is nothing out of the ordinary for Willow as she gets close to birthing.  She is only a petite girl so space inside gets limited!

At 10pm she was sat on her side looking so uncomfortable I almost rang the vet, but she wasn't having contractions and was sat with the rest of the herd (trying to get her in would just stress her out) so I decided to keep a close eye on her.  By 10.30 she was a bit happier so I thought I would assess the situation again in the early hours.

By 3.30am we had a lovely little white cria sat in the field having been up and feeding!  Three  years ago Willow gave birth to a cria in the middle of the night, the coldest night of the year, and it didn't survive so I knew she could be unpredictable.

Her little girl who we have named Palace was our smallest cria of the year at 7.12kg.  She is doing well out in the field with mum with two coats on tonight as it's freezing.

Today we have had a busy day with visitors, my uncle, his partner, her cousin and daughter came to visit which was a lovely surprise - hopefully Uncle Derrick took some photo's with his nice new shiny camera that I can share with you in a day or two.

Not long after they arrived Carol and Dave came up to do some more digging in  our veggie plot - very embarrassing.  They popped up for a couple of hours and only left an hour ago; thanks to Ursula!

Carol hadn't seen Palace so before they left we went up to see the girls, Ursula has been on her own most of the afternoon so I had said she was bound to give birth tomorrow whilst we are at Northumberland County Show.  But no, Ursula decided to give birth at 8pm tonight!!!!

Ursula is mum to Pearson who Carol and Dave saw birth a couple of years ago, and now they have seen his brother arrive, a lovely little brown (maybe dark fawn) boy.  Unfortunately he has been very slow to get to his feet, despite being kushed within minutes, Ursula wasn't been too keen to let him feed either.

They are now tucked up nice and warm in the shed and about half an hour ago he finally fed from mum so I am much happier.  He is only little, weighing in at 6.54kg.  Hopefully now he has feed I can go to bed for two or three hours ready for Northumberland County Show tomorrow.

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