Friday 30 May 2014

Roller coaster week

The last week has been a roller coaster of emotions, those of you who follow us on twitter will have seen last Friday was the day from hell.  I had decided on Thursday night that I was going to call the vet out Friday to look at Ursula who was on 340 days (her average was 348) but she just wasn't quite herself.  Temperature, colour and all other observations were normal but there was just something that wasn't Ursula.  She had been sitting a fair bit, but that's not unusual for someone so close to giving birth.

To cut a long story short just as the vet arrived she went into labour, but it was obvious things weren't right.  I established that the baby wasn't coming the right way, the head was down, neck all bent and no legs.  I could also feel no signs of life; whilst all this was going on Imala, who was well over due was also in labour and I noticed there was a head and no feet!

Thankfully it was easy finding feet for Imala so with the legs released we left Imala to get on with things.

For poor Ursula it took the vet quite some time to re-position the cria and get it out, sadly as I suspected the lovely brown girl was dead.  Shortly after things went from bad to worse and Ursula took a turn for the worse and we lost her too.  It was such a shock, neither us or the vet were expecting it.  We are awaiting the results of the postmortem.

Imala's baby, who we have named Pixie gave us the strength to carry on, but as you can imagine her arrival was tinged with sadness at the loss of the much loved Ursula and her first daughter.


Pixie is  going just great, this was on of the rare occasions she was actually still!


Monday we were at the Northumberland County Show, thankfully Gill, Ross & Taylor had agreed to farm sit, as you can imagine I didn't want to leave anyone for any length of time and I knew they were in safe hands.

We had a great show, 8 animals, 5 1st, 2 2nd and 1 3rd place rosettes and two championship sashes.

First up was Ashling, she was the cria born from my Futurity purchase, 2nd place Junior grey female.


Next up was Wonder, 1st place intermediate black female, she is out of our brown stud Darwin.


Then there was Ankha, 1st place intermediate brown female, from Golden Guinea.


Next in was the fawn boys, Zoom came 1st (out of Cambridge Southwind) and Pablo 2nd (out of Golden Guinea).


Zoom was also awarded Male Fawn Champion, I thought I'd post this as I'm actually smiling and that never seems to happen very often on photos!!


Back to pulling a face with Elfrida, 1st place Junior light female and light female champion, she is out of Gianmarco's Masterpiece.


And another face, this time with Diamanta, she came 3rd junior white female. 


And last up for team Barnacre was Plato, 2nd Intermediate white male.


We were very happy bunnies, and I was en happier when I got home because everyone was ok and Gill had dinner cooked!!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Sorry that you had such an awful start to your week, but glad things improved, and many congratulations on all your success at the show. As you say it's a roller coaster of emotions but thankfully we always have something to make us smile eventually!

Apple Vale Alpacas said...

Hope you have many more good births and show successes from now on - I've dozens of glum-looking show photos, despite being really happy - time to consciously do a coat-hanger grin!(clearly, the photographers are not choosing the right moment!)

Judi B said...

So sorry to read about you losses and hope that all the bad stuff is over for this years birthing season. Well done on all those rosettes...keep smiling!

Rosemary said...

What a dreadful start - so very sorry about Ursula and cria.

Congratualtions on all your winnings!

Andrew said...

Oh what a dreadful start to the week. Well done for getting through that and the new cria looks gorgeous !

Zanzibah Alpacas said...

What an awful shock and sad outcome. However it's lovely that you managed to help in an emergency, it was great to have the vet there too. Congratulations on your show success a happy ending that you deserve and nice to see some smiling on the photographs. .... Jayne

Shirley said...

Sorry to read of the losses you've suffered Debbie despite your best efforts - but look at the successes you've both had! Well done Team Barnacre. Shirley & Robbie