Sunday, June 15, 2008

Two Alpacas Born on the Same Day

ABOVE ▲ Ariana's cria, white baby boy, 22.2 pounds (gestation 334 days), was born about 9 a.m. yesterday. I finished barn chores at 8:30, and went back out at 9:30. He was standing! Strong and healthy! But - after 5 hours, he still hadn't nursed. We called our vet. Mike came and while we were milking Ariana, Smitty noticed a nose sticking out of Celeste - a nose, no feet.

Thankfully, Mike was there, repositioned the baby, and delivered HER. Note I said HER, our second girl out of the 9 born here. We are estatic! ....and she's beautiful! She weighed 19.7 pounds, gestation - 349 days. Strong, healthy, and was nursing from her mom, Celeste, within a couple of hours. The picture below is Celeste, who by the way was the only other girl born here, and her delightful cria. I think that her color is a medium fawn.
I'm still quite stressed that the little white boy isn't nursing. When vet Mike called today, he said to try for three days before we give in to purchasing a milk replacement for him. So we will just keep trying to milk Ariana (which she has grown to hate) and bottle feeding the little guy. The good thing is that we did get that first colostrum from Ariana into him so his immune system should be healthy.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maple, they are gorgeous cria! Congratulations on your new additions. :)

Anonymous said...

Maple they are beautiful little ones. Congrats.

isis

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the new babies! They are sooo adorable! I hope the little boy eats soon. :-)

Anonymous said...

Congrats, Maple! Fingers crossed the little boy will take up nursing soon.

Firefly Nights said...

What a sweet little mother/daughter picture. Love the way Celeste is gently touching her baby.

Taylor said...

I always love the pictures of mother animals kissing their young.

Map