Tue.19/ Weds.20th June

 

 

 19th June huh?…….that would be quite a long time since I was here last then,  hmm, I guess I’ve got loads of excuses why that should be……not been well,too sore to sit at the computer tapping away, broke the laptop, yeah that’s a good one, it sort of worked very slowly but both USB ports broke at the same time and the touch pad only half worked so I couldn’t upload/download/sideload any pictures and also 4 of the keypads kept falling off if you tapped them too hard!…… bloomin’ thing is only 5 years old and falling to bits, they’re not built to last are they?……. mind you throwing it on the floor once or twice probably hasn’t helped it’s longevity either but then the manufacturers should know that they are likely to suffer the occasional mishap with us Neanderthals at the controls and should build then encased in space shuttle grade crash resistant rubber certified to NASA earth re-entry specification standard…….. just a thought Mr.Toshiba, Acer, HP et all.

 

            So, the messed up hip was replaced the 25th May, done on the Friday afternoon, walking round the hospital on Saturday (with crutches, even I’m not that good yet!) and home on Monday morning, brilliant. Some more new metal work added to the thighbone to hold it together (looks like jubilee clips to me!) and away we go. The worst bit now is the daily injections with an anti-coagulant for thrombosis, for 5 weeks………5 bloomin’ weeks, is that really necessary? It’s 3 weeks on and I’m not exactly bed-bound, getting plenty of exercise you know……..helping with the animals, started driving this week and a bit of mowing and strimming now…….just to keep my hand in of course, all done nice and gently’ish. Ok…..wimge over for now.

      Alpaca wise the birthing and mating season is upon us, unfortunately not off to a good start this year. First up was Fraggle who birthed nearly two weeks late and following a fine birth to female cria Hiccup went and prolapsed (pushed her insides out) necessitating an emergency call to the vets who bless him tried his best but couldn’t fix her and was forced to euthanase her to stop her suffering.

                                                                           Bonheur Fille de l’air (Fraggle),

                                                                                       bye bye Fraggs.

   The good news is that her cria Hiccup managed to get enough of mothers milk before she died containing the necessary Colostrom to boost her immune system as we would now be bottle feeding her for the next four months or more…….oh joy.

 

 

Young Hicup, named because she was born hiccupping and it stuck!

 

 

 

 

She is a lovely looking girl and has taken to us feeding her no probs. she gets fed every 3 hours approx. from 6.00am through until midnight, a bit of a tie but hay ho this is what looking after animals is all about. One of our teenage girls who is not pregnant, Clove has buddied up with her and looks out for her which is nice.

 

Now I have found a major problem with this new Laptop whilst trying to do this now…… I can’t alter the pictures, it won’t let me move them or expand the size…..well it did once just now with that first one of Hiccup but now it won’t! Every time I click on the picture it deletes it……bugger, you’ll just have to put up with them like this for now. When I’ve exhausted all ways I can think of to make it do what I want perhaps I should just throw it on the floor in a tantrum like with the old one! Anyone who uses WordPress and can tell me why it’s doing this……please give me a shout!

 

      Right, next up to birth was first timer Jorja who also ran late, calving on the 12th June, a little over two weeks late……could this be a trend this year?

 

 

 

 Jorja was definitely not fully interested in the whole process. After a few pushes she gave up, sat down & carried on chewing the cud, taking no notice of baby trying to come out behind her! Needless to say, after a while Eve had to step in and pull young ‘Fleet’ out and present him to her…….’.Yes, pay attention please, this is yours to look after’ .

                           It took a good few hours of Jorja walking off every time he tried to get near to feed from

              her before she finally relented and accepted her role as mum……now they are  inseperable.

   That seemed to be the cue for Celeste to join in because next afternoon she started giving birth…… but Oh, surprise, surprise…… ‘Huston we have a problem’.  We had the top of a head showing out of the back but no nose or legs…… bugger. A delve around inside accompanied by a lot of coughing and spitting from Celeste (normal behaviour for her!) finally revealed a pair of long legs folded back to one side which took a bit of extracting but finally out he popped.

 Somewhat worse for wear, knackered and a bit twisted and bent up, I guess he had been laying inside in the wrong position for a while. He couldn’t hold his neck up for more than a few seconds at a time before flopping down onto the ground again and couldn’t ‘cush’ properly without falling over after a minute or so.

                                    Look…..the infernal machine has let me change this picture…..No, don’t ask me how, I was just beating ten bales out of the keypad trying to make it Do something and it did!…..bet I can’t do it again.

            So anyway, after a few hours of sitting with them trying to get him on his feet we opted to get some milk and the magic colostrum into him ……easier said than done, have you ever tried milking a truculent, unhappy alpaca like Celeste with teats the size of a slightly inflated grain of rice? …… no, probably not, well, to put it simply…….it ain’t easy!  If you thought she could spit before, you ain’t seen nothing yet, but after  ten minutes we had a couple of egg cups full……. that’ll have to do, into a syringe and squirt into the boys mouth along with some powdered lambs milk replacer……. sit back and keep rubbing & massaging him ………….

 

 

  Ha, I said it wouldn’t let me change the photo again!

  Anyhow, hour by hour young ‘Weaver’ improved and day on day he is straightening out, so hopefully he should grow up ok and he’s got a marvellous looking fleece.

 

 

  So next up we have 3 due on 26/27th of this month, Blaze, Amelia and the first of the Suri girls, Lacota, lets see if they  are on time or running late. We are also getting more afternoon births now, alpacas always used to birth in the mornings, almost guaranteed but things are a changing, so far 3 births, 1 morning, 1 mid afternoon & 1 early evening.

 

     Well, that’ll do for now, it is after all another day (see dates at top of page!)  I can’t get the hang of this teknology stuff and a new laptop that does it’s own thing when it wants is beyond my ken, so I’ll try again……..well, soon……..’ish.