First of the Few

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Pauline and I went to River Cottage last weekend with three of our male alpacas and asome of our UK and Peruvian stock of garments and gifts.  We had a great weekend and the weather was kind this time.

The day before yesterday Silvia ( a large brown female) gave birth to a lovely black cria by Pedro.  He needed quite a lot of care and attention at first.   I noticed some movement in the long grass and realised that she had given birth.  His neck was twisted and he was unusally floppy.  I patted and moved him around but it was several hours later and a shot of glucose followed by some artificial colostrum which revived him enough to start acting like a normal cria and suckiling from his Mum.  This morning he is running around so fingers crossed he is past the crisis.

In contrast I went to fetch the paper and some milk this morning and when I got back Viola had given birth to a brown female cria, also by Pedro.   In a very short time she was up and around.  Mike had already cleared her airway and sprayed her navel and as soon as her Mum's afterbirth came away, she was trying to suckle.   Girls Rule OK.

Bottle Feeding

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I noticed that one of the sheep  triplets was looking a bit out of condition and Nick agreed and suggested bottle feeding him to give him a boost for a while.

On the first morning he was keen to escape being caught but once I was holding him and offering the bottle he decided (after spitting out a couple of times) that it was quite nice.  Today is his third day and he is still hard to catch, but once caught latches on immediately.  He drank twice as much as on the first day.

All the animals are enjoying the lovely weather and are looking good.

Tomorrow we are off to River cottage to set up the pens for  the alpacas we are taking along to their wweekend Food Fair (not to be eaten - just as an attraction).  We will also be taking some of our products, and my friend, Pauline will be coming along to help.

Naughty Little Lambs

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The lambs are growing up fast and into lots of mischief.   They found a hole in the side of one of the shelters where some things are stores under cover and decided to use it as a playground - climbing up and sliding down and Mums are too big to follow them through the gap!!

Well - what changeable weather we had yesterday!!  This is a photo of the lovely double rainbow which formed during the mixture of sunshine and heavy downpours during the day.

Ahhh!

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I was intending to go to the Severnside Dog Agility Competition with Dolly and Charlie on Bank Holiday Monday.  Everything was going to plan.  I was ready to leave on time.  I drove up to the gate and was about to leave when I had a pang on concience and decided to have a last minute check on the ewes and lambs.

A fatal mistake - I found the last ewe to lamb had produced triplets.  If it had been twins I would probably have gone ahead but in all fairness I could not go and leave Mike with three to look after.  Having dealt with alpacas for so many years we are only used to singletons and it is a bit of a culture shock having twins and triplets.

They are all doing well now and are out all day playing and giving their mother a hard time.   We are keeping the triplets inside for another day or so as they are a little small.  All three are ram lambs so we have four of each sex.  

Bad Day

Sadly I had to deliver a still born cria this morning.   The dam was Nina, who belongs to my friend, Pauline.  She has been at livery with us for many years.  We had noticed that she was not herself a few days ago and I was concerned that with only a month to go in her pregnancy there was no sign of movement.  I gave her some antibiotic and kept her in the barn overnight with her yearling cria for company but last night we left her out because she seemed a little better and she had been  quite stressed being shut in when the rest of the herd went outside.

When I looked out of our bedroom window this morning I realised that she was giving birth and threw on some clothes quickly so that I could get out and attend to her.   I soon realised that she had stopped her contractions and that the cria was dead.  I won't go into any more detail.

She is still looking lost and trying to find her little cria, but she has steadily returned to normal as the day goes by.  Obviously we will be keeping a close eye on her for the next few days.

Nicko, the only male cria from last year is starting to take an interest in the ladies he lives with so this afternoon Nick and I took him down to join the rest of the males in the "Winter"paddocks. We sprayed him with vinegar which helps to cover his natural scent and make him more acceptable to the other males.  As we have a much smaller herd, he was the only male to join the batchelor herd.   In past years there have always been several so they were able to start off in their own mini herd before joining the big boys.

On a happier note, the four lambs are doing well and getting into lots of mischief.   Still waiting for the other two ewes to give birth.

New Arrivals at Laurel Farm

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Our first Gotland lambs have arrived.   On Monday we had twin boy and girl and this morning when I went to check on the ewes at about 5.30 a.m. I was just in time to catch the birth of the second girl of twins.   Two more ewes go go!!

Ladies in Waiting

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The ewes are nearly ready to pop!!  It is exciting and worrying.   We have birthed alpacas for years, but we have had no experience with sheep,so fingers crossed all will go well.

This is my first attempt at the blog since buying a new PC.  This one does not take half an hour to boot up and is really wizzy, although some things seem a little strange and I keep losing files which pop up later in unexpected places.   On the whole, though I like it.  Windows 8 is a very big upgrade for me - I think I missed quite a few rungs on the ladder!

Sadly the sick hen had to be despatched as she seemed to be in pain and we had tried everything we could think to try and help her.  Nick thinks something fell on her and injured her neck, although I cannot think what it could have been.