| A note about this blog: Just how *do* you go about getting into the alpaca lifestyle when it seems near impossible due to lack of funds or lack of a farm? How on earth do you learn to care for these tranquil creatures once you get them home? This journal documents how we started from the ground up with next to no funds and no knowledge, and how, with the help of very supportive breeders and friends, it is possible to make a dream come true! Join me on this very honest and personal journey. ~Roo~ |
With the very disappointing discovery of two open females in our herd that were supposed to be delivering babies this spring, the photo that Rachel just sent to my phone was candy to my eyes. A HUGE Mazara, due in the first week of April, obviously well into the late stage of her pregnancy. This should be a beautiful cria from Captain Black, fingers crossed it’s a girl!
If all goes to plan, we SHOULD see a cria within the next 2 weeks or so!
After ARI (Alpaca Registry, Inc) rejected Dakini as Marius’ sire because their DNA markers did not match, we were left scratching our heads, profoundly confused. Of course Dakini was the sire, Julia wasn’t bred to anyone else! For weeks his registration has been sitting in the ‘pending’ status with ARI as Rachel scrambled to gather new blood samples from Dakini and to study Julia’s breeding records a little closer. As a last resort she submitted almost every single breeding male she has access to, and a small note on the records reminded her that for Julia’s very first exposure to a male, she had put her in with none other than Myra’s sire, OGA Gustav. Although the note says that Julia was ‘not interested’, she obviously was while no-one was looking, because ARI notified me today that AGO Gustav is indeed Marius’ sire!
AGO Gustav is owned by Alpaca Gsellman Originals of Old Willow Farm
The comment was made more than once about Marius and Myra being the little brother and sister, and how cute they were, and although we thought they were not actually related in any shape or form, it turns out they were INDEED the little brother and sister team.
A little snippet of example why registering alpacas with ARI is so important, you know exactly through DNA testing, the lineage of your babies :) And also note that this is something that happens quite a bit and is certainly no reflection on Rachel’s record keeping *wink*
Myra’s necropsy results came in recently, and I stared at the cause of death, which was not a single cause, it was three causes:
1. Bacterial Fibrinous Peritonitis
2. Necrotizing Fungal Bronchiolitis
3. Intestinal Coccidiosis
And I really had to cry. Cry for that poor alpaca that so needlessly died without giving any indication that something was wrong.
In layman’s terms, the first cause of death was a bacterial infection of the membrane that surrounds the stomach - this infection is usually caused by fluids from the intestinal tract getting into the abdominal cavity, this is the infection doctors fear when someone’s been stabbed in the abdomen. The fact that fibrins were present indicates that it was in the very last stage of severe, chronic infection and that it had been present for quite some time.
The second cause of death was fungus, and lots of it (they had a report attached) in the bronchial tubes of her lungs, the tissue was decaying (necrotic). Fungus is normally only present when the immune system is almost completely non-existent.
So looking at those two causes you would wonder what the hell caused this, and I guess that’s why they included a third cause of death, coccidia infestation in her intestines.
Coccidia is a terrible parasite, it eats the intestinal lining of its host. The first sign is diahrrea, the second is diahrrea with blood.
When I talked to the vet about this, I suggested that because the infestation of coccidia was so severe (she had tapeworms too, BTW, like Marius), not only did it bring down her immune system so that fungus and bacteria could set in, but it gave the parasites clear passage to fully eat through the lining of the intestines, allowing the fluids to seep into the abdominal cavity. She agreed with me.
The underwriter will no doubt be very skeptical of all of this, the adjuster is already doubtful that any payout will be made. I put together a large package consisting of the claim papers, purchase agreement for Dee (Myra’s dam), sire listing for Gustav (Myra’s sire), her original ARI certificate and that lovely photo that I took of her the last time I saw her alive. And most importantly, a letter containing the events that led up to her death, the vet visits, the deworming schedule. Oh, fingers crossed…
Marius went back to the vet last week on Tuesday, Linda also took Dee to be ultrasounded. Dee, just to refresh your memory, is pregnant with our first cria from Billie.
Marius’ foot is healing, his body is making new tissue. This was a sign that his liver function was improving, and the blood test revealed that yes, it has improved! His bloodcount is still low, but it’s coming back up. A fresh fecal showed that the coccidia is dead, although the vet has warned that he will now be susceptible to coccidia for the remainder of his life. Linda reported that he is in great spirits and shows a great deal of curiousity. He will continue on his weekly shots of B12 until his body has healed. The vet expects him to make a full recovery. Oh, thank GOD!
Dee, on the other hand…
Her anaemia had gotten the better of her. The ultrasound showed no cria, so she’s open. We’ve waited almost a year for Billie’s cria and now it turns out that she’s not pregnant. To make matters worse, she had a weepy eye and a large soft lump right under it, which the vet checked out and found it to be an abcess. It had to be lanced and drained, I won’t be graphic, but it turned out to be a lot larger than expected, and now Linda has to flush it every day until it heals from the inside out. The cause? It could be several things, but the most likely is a weak immune system from the anaemia, and bacteria had the opportunity to lodge themselves there. The abcess has been there for quite some time.
Very worried about our small number of babies this year, I called Rachel in Ohio to check on Mazara. She is due at the beginning of April, and I was terrified that perhaps she was also open because I never had her ultrasounded when I bought her (the person I bought her from is a vet who does her own ultrasounds and assured me she was pregnant, and besides, when we tested Mazara with a male, she wanted nothing to do with him). Rachel told me that Mazara definately looked big. Phew! Okay, so at least she’s on track and we can expect one baby there. Soon. And one baby from Julia. That’s it. No babies from Dee or Penelope. *sigh*
Dom and Billie have left their quarantine pasture and are in with their herd of sires. Apparently the introduction went quite well. The dominant male approached them, chased them for a few minutes, then everyone resumed grazing and all has been well since.
Penelope and Demi have left their quarantine pasture and are in with the big herd of females. Penelope hung around the fence and waited for Julia, who had to stay behind with Marius, but eventually gave up and joined the big herd, Demi at her side. Julia since then has joined them.
Marius and Dee have to remain close to the house so that Linda can give them medical care every day. Linda also discovered that Marius is not eating pellets, has not eaten them since they arrived. He’ll eat grass and hay and drink milk from Julia (who has plenty) but no pellets. The plan was to wean him as soon as possible so that he can learn to eat pellets from his peers.
Today I visited My Sweet Alpaca for the first time since dropping off our alpacas there the day we moved them from SC. It’s been a crazy few weeks, so it was nice to take some time to visit and see how everyone is doing, especially Marius and Dee. And for the first time in over a year, I was absolutely THRILLED with the condition in which I found them.
I saw Dee first. She had rounded out a little, looked slightly more solid, but more than anything, her face no longer had the strained expression she normally wears. For the first time, I saw a peaceful expression in her eyes, she carried her head high, stood to attention beautifully, and trotted with excitement when Linda entered the pasture. Trotted as if there was no stiffness in her hindquarters, and after observing her for a while came to the astounding conclusion that the stiffness had in fact been greatly reduced. She’s receiving a lot of special care and extra nutrition, and it definately shows. She is no longer the little broken alpaca that I brought to the farm - she’s proud, she’s happy, she carries herself with purpose and determination. I had to give Linda a hug, I was so amazed at what I was seeing and so grateful for the care she and Mark are giving her. (psst… I noticed that Dee has Mark wrapped around her little finger… he sneaks her handfuls of food and calls her ‘darling’…)
Is that MARIUS???? I exclaimed as we approached a pen containing two young alpacas. His fiber has grown so much that he’s disappearing under there and again I felt that stinging pang about the discovery of the extra bone in his tail. Although he looked solid enough, when I laid my hand on his back he still felt so dangerously thin, just a hard backbone, then nothing, you have to grope around for the rest of him, I found this very disturbing. Of course he is slowly improving, but right now it is estimated that it will probably take about 6 months to get him to where he should be. I can still hardly believe how close we were to losing him. His foot has lost the hair around the bacterial infection site, but the skin that’s growing there is healthy and pink. He is sharing the pen with a very young female about the same size, and she has already taught him to eat pellets and cracked corn.
In the main pasture I found the three girls, hovering together in their own mini-herd away from the others, I guess they haven’t quite gotten comfortable enough to join the big herd. Penelope is putting on weight with all that green grass she’s got access to, Demi has always looked really good, and Julia is in great shape too. Linda gave me the ultrasound picture that the vet took of the cria she is carrying.
The boys are doing great too, although I’d really like to see Billie put on just a little bit more weight. He is within range, but I noticed back in January that he had lost condition, and he hasn’t quite come back from it. No doubt he will get there!
Today I also secured a breeding for Julia to Linda’s gigantic sire ‘Go Boy’, a Dracula son from Magical Farms. She was kind enough to extend her Southern Select show special to me, and I’m over the moon that we’re adding the Dracula bloodline to our herd!
Right before I was planning to leave, Linda showed me a bag of extremely soft baby cria fiber, she had washed it and was afraid she had felted it. It was a lovely dark brown with copper and gold tones, and after pulling it apart a little I told her it had dried that way, it would have been better to fluff it as it dried seeing it was so fine (at least, this has worked for me in the past). It came apart easily when pulled and teased, and I offered to put it through my drum carder when it arrives (this Friday) to make it into a set of four lovely batts. This stuff is of royal baby grade, like Marius and Myra’s cria clippings, it will form an angora-like halo when spun, just amazing.
When I mentioned to her that I was out of fiber, she pulled me into the loft of her barn and pulled out bags upon bags of amazing fiber! And so clean, like Rachel’s fiber! I almost didn’t know where to look first :) We decided that the best thing to do would be for her to provide the fiber and for me to process it into batts and rovings with my new carder, and we would share any profit we make from it. What a great opportunity to get some serious work done with my drum carder before shearing this year. I opened a second etsy store this evening called Pacos, solely for the purpose of listing the wonderful spinning fibers I’ll be creating from the treasures I discovered in her barn.
Jennifer from Desert Garden Farms ordered some of my handcarded fiber - some Amethyst roving balls and some Hematite rolags. It is amazing how time consuming hand processing fiber is, and as a result I have very little time, if any, to spin some of it myself. The handcarded roving balls I submitted for the February Phat Fiber sampler box have brought me more business than I imagined, and with our tax refund coming in I bit the bullet and invested in a drum carder to speed up production a little bit. I’ve just been informed by Brook from Twisted Fiber Yarn that it’s being shipped tomorrow… yay!
However, in the meantime I am being treated to visions of my fiber spun up into yarn by the enthusiastic handspinners that have posted photographs, Jennifer being one of them. Look how incredibly pretty her yarn turned out when she spun up the fiber she bought from me:
You can read her full blog post about it, and see more images by clicking here.
