What a day!! What a lovely warm and sunny day. Watching the alpacas out of the window while carding and spinning, my idea of heaven.
Having two girls due at the end of the month, I have been watching them more intently, and notied both girls seem very restless this morning, sitting down, then getting back up, down again and rolling, both girls are the same age born within days of each other and have a very close bond between them, and this was their first baby.
I decided to walk over to see if anything was happening, yes I was right both of them were in labour within feet of each other (how close is that!!) I have never heard so much humming and moaning, they were definately in labour, it was a race to see who gave birth first.
Bonnie was first giving birth to a light fawn little girl, five minutes later Cleo gave birth to a white boy, so one of each. Both birth were perfect, then the problem set in!!
As they were so close together, they got confused to who was their baby!! And decided they wanted the same one!!
Watching from little way away, it was apparent that they were both convinced the little girl was theirs, we decided we needed to step in and split them up. We moved the little girl further away from the little boy so there was some distant between them, but still the mums were still wanting the same baby. The little girl was on her feet first and ended up trying to feed of the wrong mum!!
We decided we need to split them up completely, so getting them into the barn, we made sure both mums milk was coming through and put each mum and baby in seperate paddocks, with some of the herd with each of them. Some of the other girls werent too impressed with being split up, but we had no choice.
Thankfully this worked and both mums have now bonded with the correct baby, phew that was
a bit hairy!!
2 comments:
We had the same problem a couple of years ago, had to split them as you have. However, when we eventually put them back together (which was a few weeks later) they both ended up being fed by the more experienced mother! The maiden didn't care though and all were fit and healthy.
They seem to be ok now, but after splitting them up the one mum kept leaving her baby alone and ending up grazing at the top of the field!! So we had to keep going out and moving the baby closer, when she saw the baby she starting humming and fussing, so it wasnt as if she wasnt bonded just kept forgetting him!! He is a bit lazier than the other cria so didnt seem to keep up with mum and the herd and he also seem a bit confused to who was his mum!! and kept going to the other girls.
In the end we decided to put them in a small paddock so there wasnt such a big space to get left behind in, this seems to have worked and they are very happy now.
Both mums and cria seem to be doing well, but its such a worry at first.
Post a Comment