New Cria!
Our first Fall cria was born on Friday, November 7 of 2008. Lady Sadie’s official due date was Thursday, November 6. She didn’t show any signs that birth was imminent, so we planned a full day away from home on Friday – a usual work day followed by dinner downtown and a concert given by one of our favorite classical singers, Kathleen Battle. Our son Benjamin would be home mid-afternoon, and he promised to let us know if anything was happening. I called Ben around 4:00 pm to check on everything, and he had not noticed the new cria in the pasture yet, so he reported no change. It wasn’t until we had already had a lovely dinner at a downtown restaurant and I was turning off the ringer to my phone in preparation for the concert that I noticed that Ben had left a message at 5:30. A new cria was following Lady around the pasture! He thought it was a female, and she was up and nursing. We nervously stayed for the concert, and then rushed home to greet our newest alpaca, a beautiful rose grey female with white speckling all down her legs. She weighed in at 17.4 pounds and was nursing very confidently when we first saw her. Mom and baby seemed to be doing very well.
We never did find the afterbirth in the pasture the next day. I was concerned that Lady Sadie might have retained the placenta – an unusual occurrence that had already happened to us with our last birth at the farm. But Lady showed no sign of distress or of straining to deliver the placenta. Her temperature was normal, and she was eating and moving normally. Our best guess is that a hawk or eagle must have feasted on the afterbirth, and removed it from the pasture before we got home that night. We have a couple of hawks that make their home in the woods behind the pasture, and I’ve spotted more than one eagle circling the lake looking for meals. We also have a pair of large white faced owls that nest in the wooded area behind the pastures.
I plan to name our new cria Freckled Rose because of her unusual sprinkling of white spots on her legs and through her back. She is a beautiful and welcome addition to Lake Liaho Farm.
