On the good, we have had a lovely solid white cria born from Lualeni and Legend, our biggest this year at just over 8.5kg. His ear had been squashed to his head and appeared inside out so it taped up at the minute. He has a lovely fleece developing and is gaining weight rapidly!
On the bad, sadly we have lost an alpaca, young James, he was only just over a year old and died suddenly. A post mortem revealed a congenital heart defect. It is so sad when you lose them and at such a young age seems such a waste.
Looking back, James had never been the most lively of boys, not that he spent a lot of time sat down but never at the front of anything and never really full of energy so I suspect this has been effecting him all his life.
A bit of good an bad together next with jaw abscesses. Niveous, who is three today has been responding well to the change in antibiotic and his abscess had shrunk enough not to necessitate surgery at this tome. Emery's however was a different story.
So on Tuesday off we headed for surgery, our vat, Sam Prescott from Robson & Prescott in Morpeth is great and Emery was soon put to sleep an the two problem teeth removed. One had only a tiny bot of root remaining and the second is rotting terribly.
I have the teeth in a jar, maybe Emery should put them under her hay net and see what the tooth fairy brings.
Unfortunately Cassiopeia is starting to struggle, she is happy in herself but now needs help to stand. She's eating and drinking ok and happy so at the minute I'm happy to help her up but I fear we are heading down a one way spiral with her, it is such a shame.
Everyday stuff, we've been doing matings, both inside and out so hopefully the girls will soon be cooking some stunning cria ready for next year. Whilst on the subject of cria, Freyja still has her legs crossed at 377 days! I hate it when maidens are late.
Poo picking is an every day job, and having a family of helpers isn't always helpful! Mum Nefertiti is sat in-between the quad and muck truck, daughter number two Meketaten, had her head resting on the quad and Ankhesenamun, daughter number three was eating the mud guards!!
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4 comments:
Sorry to read about James and your other troubles, Debbie. The roller coaster might have been down for a while but it will come back up!
Sad to lose your little chap and keeping fingers crossed for the others currently in the "alpaca infirmary". I suppose with so many animals, it's inevitable that there will be sad times and struggles with some of them. Good luck getting back on top of everything.
Ups and downs. What antibiotic did you change to ? Dougle is still fighting his abcess and i am going to review options at the end of the week. Good to know what worked for others.
Really sorry to hear about little James and that Cassiopeia is ailing. I guess if I'm to be serious about keeping alpacas (and at this junture, I am), I need to understand the lows as well as the highs that go hand-in-hand with keeping these lovely creatures. Just to let you know, the little hat and mittens went down a storm with Efa, or rather Efa's parents. Efa is too young to know about the luxury of Alpaca fibre! I hope you have more ups than downs in the coming weeks. I hope to be up again towards the end of the month for my next dose of alpaca love, so hopefully see you then. Fiona
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