Thursday 6 September 2012

Cria with casts on

It has been a rather busy day again here at Barnacre.  This morning we had the vet coming out to look at Bridie's legs as she was far to unsteady on her feet.  I also wanted three girls scanning, there was Mary to look at and a dead sheep; yeah I know he couldn't do much for a dead sheep but I wanted some advice!

Thankfully Mary was already looking much better this morning, however she's still not 100% but I think a good poo and some metacam seems to have done the trick.  Mary is thin and has very little milk so I've been keeping a close eye on Liberty to make sure she continues to gain weight as she hasn't been interested in the bottle I'd offered her.

Well tonight I round out why she probably wasn't interested in my bottle, she is pinching milk from Kealani!  I'm not sure if this is a one off, I've not seen her pinching from anyone in the field.
Sam, the vet had a very good look over Bridie, like me he has concerns over her legs, so much so she now has both legs in casts to try and help sort them out.  He was worried that she would be unable to get up and thought I might have to pick her up on a regular basis. However before he could have passed the end of our roadside grazing she was up on her own!
She will have these casts on for two weeks, assuming they don't start to cause sores or any other issues and we will see what the results are.  Keep everything crossed as without improvement the future isn't good for Bridie.

Whilst he was here Sam did three scans for me for three girls who were not giving convincing spit offs.  It turns out the only one of the three to be pregnant was Freyja, so that's two more girls going through winter empty as we are no longer mating as we don't want late babies.

We have had a rather scary visitor to the farm today, a snake, and I'm pretty sure it's an adder..

A few years ago Paul was bit by an adder and ended up in hospital so as you can imagine I'm rather concerned about this rather slippery visitor.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Fingers crossed for Birdie...she looks so sweet...the snake does not!!

Rosemary said...

Yes, every best wish for Birdie - but snakes scare me rigid. Amber, the dog, was once bitten by an adder and almost died.

Zanzibah Alpacas said...

I hope things are going to improve for little Bridie, and her legs are going to straighten so she can get stronger. The snake looks huge ..its the biggest one Ive ever seen in this country. Fingers crossed for the next few weeks ...Jayne

Apple Vale Alpacas said...

Do hope Bridies strength improves

Bev said...

I always feel like giving young cria a bit of a cuddle, but I want to give poor little Bridie a great big hug of encouragement.