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Tuesday 14 April 2009

keeping me waiting

Worse than being an expectant mother is being an expectant alpaca mother ! Naively , I hoped against hope that Kirsty might do the decent thing and deliver today - it started promisingly enough , first thing she was away from the herd gazing into the distance as though she had nothing else to think about . Gradually she rejoined the herd , but continued to show lots of signs of impending birth - rolling around , scratching her belly a bit , she has taken to sitting slightly to one side since her belly is so big she cannot cush as normal and she is resting quite a lot in the way any expectant mum would recognise as ' OK , this has gone beyond a joke , lets just get it over with '! But no , tonight she is still hanging on , still looking quite uncomfortable ( in a healthy way ) and just as quick to come for a snack as usual .

And another thing , do I have the only yearlings with big fleeces who seem to actively seek out brambles to sit in ? Or are they actually doing me a favour , and allowing me to use my dagging shears on a regular basis so that I can get proficient ?

But they do love the late evenings - it gives them a little extra boost ( no idea why ) and I just love to see them all cavorting and pronking for no more obvious reason than that they can ! I let them out of their field so that they could come down the drive for a treat - they are in a new field with new access ,and I want them to be comfortable with the access so that in an emergency I can move them easily - the yearlings got everyone going , racing up and down the drive leaping and enjoying themselves - even the really pregnant girls had a gentle jog !!

Tomorrow is hatching day - I hope !!

3 comments:

Crazy Lady with purple fingers said...

Hi, Found a link to your blog on Maggies blog. We have raised Llamas for many years and the baby wait makes a person a bit crazy, we were gifted some alpacas a couple years ago and bred the two female Alpacas last fall so hopefully will have some alpaca babies along with a few llama babies. We also raise goats..not as many as we did in years previously, but had surprise kids a bit ago,pygmies bred to a Boer buck which was scarey but it was not the disaster I thought it was going to be, we are now waiting for the four Boer girls we did bred on purpose to kid pretty soon.

Callie Brady said...

What beautiful animals! I was searching for information about Brahma chickens and found your blog. I loved reading about your alpacas. We are talking about getting some goats again, maybe. We had dairy goats and I do miss them. Oh, and what are crocs... outside boots?

Suzanne@ Panteg Alpacas said...

You are so right Crazy Lady , the wait makes me very twitchy! I don't sleep all that well until the baby is at least a week old so I may have a way to go , and then the others will be due too !

I am desperate for my Brahmas to hatch but I fear that the power cuts we had may have put a stop to that ! Crocs are light weight plastic shoes - originating from the USA !

Great to meet you both .