New Paca Talk Episode-- "Problem Child"

http://www.pacatalk.com/2009/10/pt-22-farmtalk-problemchild/

We've posted a new Paca Talk Episode about our "Problem Child" Little Margie. We had to bottle-feed her for a few days, and it took her a long time to gain weight at a reasonable rate.

Enjoy!
m

Welcome Canyonera!

Dawn's cria was born on July 15, 2009. She appeared in the pasture about 12:30 in the afternoon, a nice surprise.

She's a little one: born at about 12 pounds. She's quite a personality, however. She's what you would call "vigorous."

Let me explain the grandiose name. Her daddy is Escalade, which is the name of a very large SUV. There was an episode of the Simpsons that was about another very large SUV: the Canyonero.
This little one is a girl, so we just feminized it to Canyonera.

Here is a group shot of Canyonera (a few days), Margie (22 days)and Apu (almost 4 months).

Margie is now over 18 pounds, which isn't bad. The vet looked at her when he came to give Canyonera the once-over and decided to try a couple things: creep feeding, more vitiamin B and one more round of antibiotics because he heard a tiny rumble in her lungs.

I'll post more about the creep feeder I built in a later post. For now, just enjoy the baby cuteness.

m

Lil' Margie's gain rate

Margie is gaining about 4 ounces a day. That's half of what I'd like to see her gain. But she's bright and active, which are good signs.

Because Margie seems so sensitive to stimuli, I would hate to put her and her mama in a trailer and leave them on a strange farm for breeding. Thank fully, the person who owns the stud we want to breed Lisa to has offered to bring him to our farm so we can hand-breed them. We're close enough neighbors that this isn't too much of a problem, but there's enough distance between us that he'd rather not be driving back and forth multiple times if the first breeding doesn't take.

In other updates, Dawn will be pregnant a whole year come tomorrow. You'd think a 13 year-old dam wouldn't hold a cria this long. I have heard that one llama vet has changed his due dates this year by assuming a year plus two weeks. That would be close for all our alpacas except Cabernet, who had her baby at around 335 days this year (she's always a week or more early).

In still other news, I've picked through four or five bags of light-colored fiber. Man, I have a lot of fiber. A start is a start, though. Here's a reminder of what my fleece table looks like, though I've moved the whole operation to the garage.

That's all for now!
m

Margie gaining weight!

Li'l Margie has put on 11 ounces since the vet visit. She's FINALLY over her birth weight of 14# 13oz. She's 13 days old now. A normal cria would have put on 5-6 lbs. by now.

Here's a chart of her weight in ounces (240 ounces is 15 pounds). "a" is am and "p" is pm weights:Click on the chart to get a bigger view of it.

You can see that we really had some trouble there. The biggest dip happened the day we saw Margie nursing and turned her and her mom out with the herd, like we have with every other baby we've had. That was a mistake that took a week to recover from.

I'm going to err on the side of caution and keep them confined to the barn for at least another day, then perhaps we'll let them out into the 50-foot run for a day and see if she keeps gaining weight.

She's going to make it. I wonder how long it will take for her to "catch up," though.

In other news, Dawn is now approaching the 360-days pregnant mark. She was bred on 7/14/08. Her baby is doing jumping jacks inside her and she looks alternately profoundly uncomfortable and in zen-like peace. Please, Lord of Alpaca Births, let this one be a girl.

m

Little Margie update

Lisa's cria is healthy, but not gaining weight.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter (@marenster) have been getting periodic updates on Lisa's cria, whom we have named Marge Simpson (Little Margie until she outgrows it). To those of you who rely on my blog entries for updates, I apologize for the lag in information.

The good news is that Margie is a bright, happy, vigorous little girl. The bad news is that she is 10 days old, and is not gaining weight. She even weighs 4 ounces less than she did when she was born!

As a reminder, Lisa is a first-time mom, and it took her and Margie about two days to figure out the whole nursing thing. We bottle-fed Margie for several days while they figured this out. We have been trying to bottle feed her for the past few days, but she has been refusing it. Yet, she hardly gained any weight at all.

We finally had the vet out today. He has declared that Margie is healthy, but isn't eating enough. This would sound dumb, but my own little human child had trouble eating enough when she was a week old, so there. The vet gave Margie a shot of B-vitamins to stimulate her appetite and some antibiotics just to be safe.

So, we're not going to harass her with a bottle anymore, and she and mom are confined to the barn until Margie gains some weight steadily. She is a cute little fighter, and I think she'll be fine, but man, she's absorbed a huge amount of time.

It's worth it.

m