With a heavy heart

It is with a heavy heart that I await tomorrow . Diablo has not had a good day , whilst I would usually consider myself ' a glass half full ' sorta gal , today I feel quite the opposite. I called the vet out this morning- Diablo was lethargic in the extreme , and had lost weight over night , refused to actively take a bottle and was only taking a small amount that I was force feeding him . Blood and fecal samples have been taken , temp appears normal , no obvious pain or swelling anywhere - a total mystery. The vet has scratched her head and whilst we await the test results from the VLA Diablo will be scanned and x-rayed tomorrow morning to see if anything presents itself.
His feed at 6.30pm was also reluctantly taken , but by 10 pm he was sucking , which is the first time in several days that I have had any help from him , maybe positive? He does seem to be holding his head slightly oddly , and dribbling a bit , but I am beginning to see all sorts of things which may or may not really be a problem . Hey ho , hopefully some answers tomorrow , but I am not expecting them to be good.

On the plus side , there usually is a plus if you look , we have friends visiting from SF who we haven't seen for a year, and that is great.

Emotional roller coaster

On the bright side , matings have gone well , all the girls have been mated now except Brizo , she is a maiden who showed a lot of interest a week ago , but seems to have got cold feet now that her turn has come , we'll wait and try again in a couple of days. Hermione has spat , and none of the other girls ( who were so keen a week ago ) could be persuaded to even come and look at Magic , I take that as a good sign.

On the other hand Diablo is causing me a lot of concern . I just don't have a good feeling about this . I weighed him tonight and he has lost a couple of 100g's , his feeding is erratic , and I rarely catch him feeding from mum . She has plenty of milk , and lets him feed but far too often I find him tucked up under a hedge or sunbathing and she is not paying him any attention. As soon as I appear with a bottle then she is right by his side . We have bottle fed a couple of cria over the last 5 years and I have never had one who is not interested in the same way Diablo isn't. He started so well , coming eagerly to the bottle , but now I have to catch him , and tonight I had to practically force feed him . Undoubtedly I am going to have to take a more proactive stance on this one , we go on holiday in 3 wekks time , so I need to be sure he is doing better by then or the house sitters will have a nightmare! Does anybody have any ideas or tips , I could really do with some !

And foxes , don't mention foxes !!! I have barely had a good nights sleep for weeks due to the constant attentions of a fox. Last night it chewed the corner of the nesting box , I kid you not , sometimes a gun looks most appealing .

still going in the right direction

I am pleased to report that Diablo continues to progress , it seems that when the weather is bad he feeds very little ( and looses weight ) and if the weather is good vice versa. Tonight he took a bottle , but that is the first time since Sat. and he has gained a couple of 100 gms , so with all the ups and downs he stands at 7.3kgs ! Still hardly a giant , but good enough for me at the moment .

Today also saw some more matings , as did yesterday. Teifi Magic spent 2 weeks in a field with most of the eligible ladies and refused to perform his studly duties , yesterday I thought I was doing pregnancy tests, but it became immediately apparent that none of the girls are preg yet , judging by the fight to get into the mating pen!! So , two matings yesterday and 3 today . Artemis is very keen on this mating business , she muscled her way to the front of the queue yesterday , and then tried again today , standing next to whoever was mating and keeping an eye on proceedings. I find it very amusing that after a few minutes orgling the girls start dropping like flies until the whole mating pen is surrounded by very keen females. Lets hope it all goes to plan and we get a bumper crop of cria for next year after this years disappointing showing.

Progressing ....

Diablo has reached the massive weight of 7kgs! What a relief. He is still coming in at night , and I am offering him a bottle morning and night but he only takes a small amount if any at all , as if he is being polite , but he isn't really interested . Whilst the rain is welcome in many ways , it is proving a hindrance for cria growth , I would love some nice sunny days for him so that he can get some Vit D and run around , but it looks set to carry on as a damp June. Anyway , the progress is small but positive . Thank you for all your support and good ideas .

Back to square one !

Diablo lost a little weight yesterday and a little more today , so we are back to bottle supplementing! I am so disappointed , I really thought that he would be up and away with the progress he has made , but a combination of cold wet days and nights has taken its toil , and I think he has entered a vicious circle where he was too cold and wet to want to feed and then he was to weak to be able to feed , I had hoped that taking him in in the evenings would help , but clearly not enough! This evening he took 200mls of goats milk with extra double cream and it went down very quickly , almost instantly there was an increase in activity and now he is tucked up in the stables with his mum , feeding happily . Lets hope that a couple of weeks of supplementing will see significant improvement , after all there must be a tipping point when they weigh enough to feed well and run around ?!

Soggy

It has rained ALOT over the last couple of days , but thankfully it has been sunny today . I am so grateful for the rain , and very sorry for the farmers in the SE who are on water restrictions , but yesterday when I was knelt on the grass in the pouring rain bailing out a drainage hole that was blocked , whilst DH tried to locate the problem I was rather less grateful.

.

Diablo was looking very sorry for himself , cushed against a hedge in the rain , so in he and mum came for a dry off and a comfortable night in the stable . I don't think he had been feeding very much , he looked a little lethargic and sad , so cria coat back on , and plenty of feeding , he looked much brighter this morning. At lunch time I let them out for some sun , and weighed him as well . Worryingly his weight gain since birth was only 1.5kg. I guess in percentage terms that s ok since he only weighed in at 5.5 kgs in the first place , but I had hoped for a bit more . Today may have seen a greater weight gain , fingers crossed, otherwise we'll be back to a supplement bottle for my peace of mind . Veronica is a good mum and always has plenty of milk , but being so small I suppose he uses alot of energy just feeding .

Shearing done at last!

Last night I was too pooped to blog - shearing started at 8.30 and finished 14 hrs later at 10.30pm ! and we only did 22 alpaca!

Initially we started well , a friend bought her 3 to join us for shearing and it seemed to be going smoothly , 3 alpacas in the shearer complained that the hand piece was warming up too much and he would have to switch to the reserve hand piece , this also had a fault and so did the back-up reserve hand piece! After 3 hours of 'fiddling' with the hand pieces DH and the shearer admitted defeat and we called the whole thing off. Friend departed with her 3 unshorn animals , and we put everyone back in their fields. 3 hours later the shearers called to say that they were on their way back having got a new hand piece and would be with us in an hour! Back to square one!Call friend, round up alpacas , start shearing again at 6.30pm. This time we sheared our Friends animals first , and finally finished our own at 10.30 - at which point we all sat down fro bacon sandwiches and beer ! but only after everyone had showered!

ps the alpaca look great , and I am stiff as a board from all the bending and gathering of fleece