She was trying to get into the old trough which the girls like to use for bathing when I noticed the head appearing. We managed to separate her from the herd and get her into the barn.We were concerned that the legs of the cria were not presenting. Luckily Nick was working and was about to go to lunch, so Mike and I held her whilst he found the legs and brought them forward so that the birth could proceed. Naturally the cria has been named Nick - well actually Nicko to keep our South American theme going.
Petra has always been quite difficult to handle but having spent quite a lot of the winter in the barn this year she has calmed down a lot and luckily, as she is quite a big alpaca, has become much more relaxed about everything.
I gave her a shot of antibiotic to try and prevent infection following the manual intervention and then we let her and her new born out into the sunshine. Normally the alpacas "aunties" just come and have a sniff and register the new member of the herd and then walk away but a couple of the younger females were being over zealous and would not leave mother and baby alone so we moved the herd into the adjacent paddock, leaving Petra to concentrate on looking after Nicko.
They are all back together now and everything seems to be going well, so fingers crossed for Nicko's future.
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