John and I have done our first day’s grading for UK Alpaca and have got through around 400 kilos so far. I am now covered in dust, my trousers are filthy and I desperately need a shower. Tomorrow we are shearing and the weekend is going to be busy too, I thought you were supposed to take it easy when you reach 60 – ha ha. Luckily we had John’s son Harry with us and we made him do all the boring stuff – clearing up the crap fleece, bagging the bags, heaving full bale bags on to the scales etc.
We had a really horrendous stuck cria today. Even Chas couldn’t get it out and there aren’t many he has failed to extract. We had to call the vet out convinced it was probably dead. Steven is very experienced and was about to give up when he went for an old horse trick and heaved the animal up with its back legs in the air so that the cria went back in as far as possible with the help of gravity. Then he was able to get the head, which was underneath and backwards, out. Amazingly the cria was alive. She’s in the barn at the moment with her mother as we have had quite a lot of rain this afternoon and it was a seriously traumatic birth. It is trying to suckle but can’t seem to grasp the getting your head under instead she is sucking her mother’s fleece – not much colostrum there sweetheart. Anyway she’s had two tubes of plasma and we’ll give her a bit of milk l;ater and then leave them to their own devices. All will probably be well in the morning.