The suri girl is doing well, she is managing to take off mum now but we are still topping her so as to get her strength up. Lesson learn’t here is don’t underestimate the effect of wind chill. I think we nearly lost her because of it. Have called her Fatima after a friend of mine at school!!
Our second cria of the year arrived yesterday on one of the coldest days in April that I have ever known. Not only was it cold but she was also born in torrential rain. Gary was here with the vet doing some vet certificates on some animals at the same time as watching the female who looked as though she might be in labour. After the vet had finished he nipped out to find a head showing but no legs, dashed back in and made the vet don his waterproofs and help sort out the mal-presentation. Thats what I call good timing….no call out fee!! Anyway everything was fine except for the fact that the cria, a dark fawn suri girl was enormous weighing in at 12.5kg. Shortly afterwards the sun came out and things settled down. After an hour the cria was still very quiet so Gary brought her into the barn, wrapped her in a coat and gave her some powdered colostrum and a good dose of glucose but unlike the first cria this didn’t have the desired effect and she remained very quiet. Another hour passes and he checked her again, no improvement and considerably colder so out came the hot water bottles and hair dryer.
Half an hours work with this and some more glucose and she seemed to pick up. Another hour passed and he checked on her again, she was very cold and her temperature wouldn’t register on the thermometer. Emergency measures were called for and he put her into a hot bath, gradually this brought her temperature up and she suddenly kicked into life as she hit 38c. By this time I was there and we got her out and dried her off infront of the aga, wrapped in towels and hopefully holding her temperature herself now. Meanwhile Gary and I went and had the enjoyable task of milking mum who fortunately after a bit of a wrestling match let us have about 75ml of her precious colostrum. This we got straight into the cria with a bit extra added and left her by the aga with Dogo the Jack Russell in charge.
As you can see , Floppsy has come on in leaps and bounds over the last 5 days. We can’t catch him in the field now and he is annoying all the other expectant mums in the field waiting for a playmate. He looks as if he could be quite smart with a noticeably dense fleece. Not surprising with Golden Gun on his mothers side and his Dad being Little Legend.
We are organising the annual alpaca show at the Duchy College, Rosewarne, Camborne. This is taking place on Sunday 11th May and judging starts at aproximately 11.30am. Paul Cullen has once again kindly offered to be the Judge.
Entries are already over 40 animals, with suri and huacaya classes and looking at the entries so far there is going to be some high quality stock on show. It is open to the public, there is no charge for entry and the college canteen will be open during the day……..see you there.
Saturday May 3rd sees Popham Alpacas pay a visit to Trelissick Gardens, near Truro….
Visitors to the gardens will be able to see them in the Georgian Stable yard and take them for walks aound the beautiull gardens.
Trelissick Garden is set on many levels and is well known for its variety of tender and exotic plants. The garden is in bloom all year round and can also be reached by boat.
The garden has many South American plants but for the first time South American alpacas will be seen walking amongst them. This might turn a few heads !!
Popham Alpacas had a very succesfull day at the Concours European at Vierzon in France. Popham Colombus was White Huacaya Champion, Popham Daniel followed suit by winning the Brown Championship. Colombus then went onto take Reserve Supreme.
Both alpacas are staying on in France. Daniel is to start working at Utopian Alpacas in Brittany. Colombus is enjoying a stay at Aquitaine Alpacas in the Dordogne mating all of Lindsay Naylor’s females before returning back to the UK on October/November. Our other animals performed well with Popham Ceasar coming second to Colombus and Atlas winning his class and then getting Reserve Champion Black. Both these animals are resident with Steve at Quelvehin Alpacas in Brittany and will be starting work shortly.
Our first cria is on the way and all looks good….so far. Destiny, the mum is a maiden and things are happening a few weeks before time so just as well we are on hand. In fact things went very well and before to long this little fellow was on the ground. Weighing in at only 5.25kg and very weak he couldn’t stand so we needed to start him off with some powdered clostrum which worked like a starter pistol and he was soon trying to stand.. Suddenly he was up and latched on to mum and hasn’t looked back since. We have nicknamed him Floppsy because of his ears, a typical sign of a premature cria.