Posted by roo on November 12th, 2007 — Posted in Demi
Demi looked awkward with her hernia belt on and it was obvious that she was not impressed by it. I found her laying in the sun, every now and then rolling onto her back to actively try to remove the belt. It was sad, especially when she got up, because she was slightly limping. When we caught her however, the belt was snug, but not too tight, so I’m not sure why she was limping. She had put on another large amount of weight, and Letti told me that Demi has not had any supplemental bottles in a while. She refuses to take them, and seeing her weight is increasing exactly as it should, there is no need to be concerned about that any longer. I noticed that she was grazing now too, so she’s obviously getting nutrition from that as well.
Her appearance had changed. She was a slightly lighter colour, and her fleece was more dense and fluffly, rather than long and stringy. My biggest excitement however, was when John asked me inspect her fleece closely, which I did while he cradled her in his arms. He explained to me that the fleece a cria is born with is finer and darker due to the fluid in the womb that they’ve been floating around in. But a few weeks after being born, you get to see the ‘real’ fleece… and I was shocked as I parted her fleece to take a look. It was silky, dense… and VERY crimpy! Crimp, the small waves in the wool strands, is what sets a quality alpaca apart from a a cheaper one. Crimp is highly sought after because it indicates superior quality wool on the animal. Fandango Star, Demi’s father, won a championship with his fleece, and John’s aim with this round of cria’s that will be born early in the year (of which Demi was a part, but she came into the world early) was to re-produce Fandango’s wool structure. He was grining ear to ear as I looked up from inspecting Demi’s fluffy coat, he was so proud of her. Of course we will not be able to see the full potential of Demi’s wool until her cria wool is shorn off in the Spring and her more mature wool grows in, but this was an amazing preview seeing it only gets better from here on!
Demi’s father, Fandango Star
A closeup of Fandango’s fleece
A closeup of Demi’s cria fleece
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Posted by roo on November 9th, 2007 — Posted in Dee Dee, Demi
AN UPDATE ON DEMI:
For about a week I was on the phone every day with John to check on Demi. Her progress was slow. In her opinion, two sucks at the bottle was enough to serve as a feeding and it was impossible to get her to drink more. However, it’s been a week and a half now since we discovered she wasn’t getting enough milk, and I’m very pleased to say that she’s on track with her weight gain. I’m not sure how much she is drinking right now, but she’s putting on about half a pound a day, which is what we want to see.
However, the joy of the weight gain was offset a little with the news that John discovered an umbillical hernia when he picked her up to weigh her on Sunday. He expressed his disbelief over the phone, explaining that normally something like is noticable when they are born, and it was a mystery to him why he hadn’t picked it up before. We hypothesised back and forth a little and came to the conclusion that perhaps it HAD been there all along, but that it was small enough not to be detected unless you were actively looking for it. Adding powdered goat’s milk to her diet may have constipated her, and her straining may have aggrevated it. Penelope DID step on her umbellical cord after the birth, so a hernia would not be at all out of the question. Regardless of the cause, hernias are easy to treat by putting a special harness on the animal that supports the hernia with memory foam. This takes the pressure off it, preventing an intestine from dropping in there and becoming blocked (and causing death) and allows it to heal properly without being strained further.
Online I went, to a llama store, and purchased a cria support harness to be shipped directly to John. There’s our first official piece of equipment for our farm *grin*. He should have received it yesterday, and I’ll check in with him later today to see how she took to it.
AROHA DELIGHT:
Also known as Dee Dee, and I’ve mentioned her in an earlier post as the female we would like to purchase to serve as a guinea pig to carry Dominic’s first offspring. Rachel sent me an email yesterday with figures for her, as well as a short background on her capabilities as a dam. Although I would still like to purchase the beautiful beige alpaca Katie to add to our very small but very prized foundation herd, she’s almost double the price of Dee Dee. And because Dee Dee is very affordable compared to Katie, Dee Dee is my first priority. If Katie is still available in the new year, I will do my best to purchase her because her bloodlines are totally different from Dom and Penelope’s.
Dee Dee is six and a half months pregnant to AGO Gustav, a national blue ribbon winner. The resulting cria is almost a guaranteed ‘win’ because of the bloodlines. A female is always a win because she can breed, but males are different. Only about 3% go on to be herdsires… the rest are usually castrated and made into pets. Geldings are a necessary part of the farm, because they serve as companion animals for alpacas in isolation and when an alpaca has to take a trip to the vet. Being a herd animal, an alpaca can sink into depression very quickly when alone.
Dee Dee has had four crias in her lifetime, 3 girls and 1 boy. The boy is currently being used as a sire by a farm in Ohio. Her last girl is one of Rachel’s prized animals. Purchasing Dee Dee in a pregnant state is only $1500 more than purchasing her in an open state, so I’m trying like crazy to get the deposit together by the end of the year so that we can purchase her pregnant and have the added bonus of a cria she will be delivering in late May. She will then be bred to Dom on day 12 after the birth, and we can expect our first cria from him in early June of 2009. How exciting! Everyone will be watching with bated breath to see if Dominic has the ability to pass on his daddy’s (MR Tuxedo Jack) genetics, especially us!
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