We went up to the barn this morning to find our latest cria as stiff as a board. This brown female was born on Wednesday and her mother had no milk. We swung into action giving plasma after a couple of hours and then moving on to colostrum from the bottle. All seemed to be going well as the cria sucked nicely until yesterday afternoon when she was pretty sluggish. We brought her in and although she felt warm under the coat her temperature was low. Not a good sign. So we sat her down on a deep bed of straw with two hot water bottles and a blanket. She sucked a bit in the evening and seemed brighter so I went to bed quite hopefull – clearly an error! The cria was very small so I suspect there was something else wrong with her which took her out. Ah well, we won’t be breeding her mother again as she is an old girl and has a very dodgy udder so she will become an Aunt to the weanlings or a companion female instead.
The sweeper thing is very good, half the farm has been done, only a few fields to go AND it scoops up the molehills as well. We have to get this done as the next task is to bung calcified seaweed everywhere.