The weekend has been a busy one, we were doing spit offs and a couple of matings. The great news is that we now have Sunburst's first conquest, Carol, spitting off, this is a pregnancy spit too.
Sunday Paul and I headed up to the Highlands for a flying visit, now exactly a quick drive but as my parents were here we took the opportunity to leave mum in charge and head off. Mum had been warned to keep her eye on a couple of the girls as they were looking like they were ready to birth.
To cut a very long story short Cara managed to pop out a premature cria and worried my poor mum to death! Jan and Phil from Castleside Alpacas wanted to experience a birth so they had headed over (unfortunately they all missed the actual birth itself), but they were a great help to mum, and thankfully it hasn't put them off!
The lovely little girl who is showing all the signs of prematurity (born at 327 days) and has yet to be named was too weak to stand and feed, in fact she didn't even manage to kush without mums help. After colostrum and some kick start she had a little energy boost but it was short lived and Cara and her baby had to be bought inside.
Being in the Highlands phone signal wasn't great which wasn't good as mum was struggling to get hold of me and when she could we were constantly getting cut off. By the time we got home on Sunday night the midwifery team had bottle fed the cria, tried unsuccessfully to milk mum but had kept the little girl alive.
I managed to milk mum and bottle fed the cria who was I later managed to latch on to mum, but I had to support her as she was unable to stand or hold up her head.
With a cria requiring round the clock care and a goat kid being force fed there wasn't much chance of me going o Northumberland County Show on Monday, so Paul headed off with my parents whilst I stayed back at the farm.
With lots of help and encouragement I managed to get Cara's baby feeding from mum, but she was still unable to stand herself up and even when helped couldn't stand for long.
Whilst this was going on the show team were all winning rosettes, Lily below took 1st intermediate female. Ankha took 1st brown junior female with Gypsy taking second, Ankha went on to win brown champion. There is a lovely photo of Ankha and Paul on the Hexham Courant website.
And our white boy Thor came 3rd in the Intermediate male class.
At the same time as the show was going on Little Miss Irraquoy went into labour and has produced a fantastic fawn girl!
I will update you on progress tomorrow as I really do need to go and get some shut eye now!
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3 comments:
Well you can't blame lack of available content for the lack of blogging! Great start with two female and congratulations to alpaca grandma for her multitasking as midwife and alpaca show handler!
Hope those babies are thriving well, your poor mum needs a holiday after all that. Congratulations on your recent show success, I think a nice quiet week wouldn't go a miss .... Jayne
Go to bed!!
(and congratulations!)
(and well done to Mum!)
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