Rainy Day Event

Yesterday morning I woke up the to sound of rain on my window; it was also very cold in our bedroom so I decided to cuddle down in the covers for a while longer. At 7:30 I decided that there would be no more sleep for me and it was time to quit being lazy and get up. After rolling out of bed I peered through the slats in the mini-blinds like I do every morning and the first thing I saw was Cierra (our black female who's due to deliver any day) standing obediently over her very wet and shivering cria! Now, Cierra is known to pop babies out when we aren't looking, but the rule is that alpacas deliver their crias between about 8:00 am and 3:00 pm. This is the second cria for us that didn't follow this rule.

I quickly got dressed, gathered up towels, rubber gloves, iodine, and bags and headed out to check out the new baby. I'm assuming that she was just born so I was a little surprised that when I stood her on her feet she stayed. In fact, she immediately started looking for her milk supply. Usually it takes a half hour or more before they can really stand. I gave her a quick rub down with the towels and then proceeded to strip the plugs off Cierra's teats; they were already stripped! No wonder this little girl (yes, I said, "girl") already seems to know what she's doing. I wonder how long she's been doing it. I look around and there is the placenta, all there just as it should be. This was way too easy. All I needed to do was dip the navel, put a coat on her, and lock them in the barn out of the rain.

The poor little thing shivered so much yesterday that I ended up putting a second coat on her. When I went out to check on her at 5:00 pm she was still shivering so I gave her another good rub down and left a towel draped over her and her coats. At 8:00 pm I checked on her again, this time I took a hot pad made out of a two gallon zip lock bag with a couple of dish towels soaked in hot water. Sure enough she was still shivering so I stuck the hot pad under her coats for a few minutes then I wrapped it around her head, ears, and neck for as long as I could hold her still. I repeated this just before I went to bed at 11:00 and she finally quit shivering. When I went to check on her first thing this morning she was not shivering and the rain had stopped so I let her and Cierra back out in their pasture.

After the pasture started getting direct sunlight I was able to take her jacket off and this is what she looks like:

I think she is what we call a dark rose grey, which is something between brown and grey; kind of a dusty brown. The surface of her fleece looks like a Berber carpet. I can't wait to shear her in the spring!