At Last!

The wee cria we've been waiting for arrived. As is our usual experience, we knew nothing about it till all of a sudden there it was! No signs from Coco the day before or anything. However she had been looking absolutely huge and was almost at 365 days!

He's a wee boy. And when I say wee, he is scrawny as anything, but very, very tall with long gangly legs. He's very quiet. And as ever with our cria births it wasn't all sweetness and light.
He seemed to be walking even more unsteadily than our other crias and one of his back legs just didn't look totally right. So I spent the morning worrying, then thought sod it! I'm phoning the vet. She duly arrived, took his temperature ( normal) listened to his heartbeat ( normal) but I wasn't being completely paranoid, as he has a relaxed ligament in his back leg - that's why it looked squiffy. Vet said this can happen when a baby has been in the womb and is a bit overdue - can happen in horses supposedly! Anyway, it will right itself over the next few days. However I am glad I called the vet - I was totally honest and told them that it wasn't an emergency, just paranoia! I don't think I smiled properly until they gave him the all clear!

So, sticking with the tea name theme, we're going to call him Leaf, as in tea leaf.

Here he is still all wet and soggy, about half an hour old. Check out those super spindly legs.

Here he is with his mum, Coco, and half of his sister, Stella.

It is so lovely how our family groups stick together. Last years babies went down to Naturally Alpacas to be weaned but as soon as they got home they went straight back to their mums. They never tried to suckle again, just wanted to be near mummy. Now both Vienna and Coco are part of a family of three and last years crias, Herbie and Stella are most protective of their new brother and sister. Usually making sure that the cria is inbetween them and mum, in a sandwich!


 Still a bit gunky here. I did clean it off later I just wanted him to bond with his mum first.

Almost! He actually suckled really well. He's the first one we've had that we didn't have to start off with a bottle.

Much that Coco did the right thing and gave birth on a lovely sunny morning, the weather very quickly turned to custard and this poor wee guy has had a lot of thunder, lightning and even some hail to contend with. Thankfully he's all rugged up in his wee coat.

I think I mentioned before that this is the last time we'll breed from our girls. We're not cut out for it at all. I find the whole thing terribly stressful, so we'll just stick with our four babies, two girls and two boys!