Alpaca Cria

Two more cria arrived yesterday – a big one and a titch. I was watching this big brown suri in the birth field and went out to see how she was doing. Her tail was up but she did not appear to be dilated when suddenly the head and legs burst through like a rocket. Hell’s Bells, I went back to the barn for a towel, a coat, the navel spray and the yellow glurp and by the time I got back this very large female suri was sitting up. I have no idea why I bothered to put a coat on it as she was running about in no time. The second one, a brown boy, emerged very slowly from one of our very old brown girls who we call Wild Eyes. She is a bit of a wreck nowadays and always fairly thin but has plenty of milk and a somewhat irritable nature. The cria is 5.5kgs but with plenty of spirit and after a couple of hours in the barn to sort itself out was allowed into the field to frolic.

Chas has decided that we need an incubator as we have so many eggs, is this logical? we will have MORE hens but still it could be fun. He has ordered it on the internet. Will it be man enough to hatch an ostrich egg, that would be amusing.