Latest Arrival

Well what a beautiful day it was yesterday, and a lovely day to have our latest addition to the herd arrive.  But I have got to add I missed it all!!  Caught on the hop again!!  Cleo has given birth to a beautiful light fawn girl.

There were no signs in the morning and with a lovely day predicted we took the chance to visit our daughter, husband and gorgeous grandchildren (never miss the chance to have a visit to see them all)  Cleo not being due to mid April and with no signs of the arrival I thought it would be safe to go out for a few hours, knowing that Natalie my youngest daughter and her partner would be over in the afternoon to check everyone and feed etc.

Well she gave birth sometime in the morning between when we left and when Natalie and Don arrived in the afternoon, Nats and Don were great, Don had spotted her and let Natalie know, who phoned me and then did the usual checks, sprayed her cord and removed the wax from mum's teats.  While we were on our way home Nats gave me regular updates on the mobile.

By the time I arrived home everything had been done and she was happily feeding from mum.

Our boy Efron has done it again and given us a lovely light fawn Suri girl 

(well with the help of mum Cleo of course!)

Now our other little girl has someone to play with.

And meeting some of the other girls.

I love it when we have a new arrival everyone in the herd are so interested and love to say hello.  

Well that's it for cria births until July, so I shouldn't be caught on the hop again for a few months!!

Puppies and New Cria

I just don't know where the times goes!!  But here is the latest update and photos of the latest additions at Cherry Tree Farm.

Firstly we have our first cria born this year, the one which took us by surprise by arriving a month early!!  She is a lovely brown suri girl, very pretty and petite.  Poor little thing hasn't even got a name yet!!  Looking for something beginning with F ??


Because the weather has been quite cold she has had to keep her little coat on longer than I would normally do so, but because she is a Suri they don't have as much fleece as a Huacaya when first born I think she would feel the cold more.

Here she is with her little yellow coat on saying hello to Daddy

Here she is this morning, the sun was shinning so it was time to let her have a few hours with her coat off.

And here she is with her Mum, spot the colour difference!! (both mum and dad are the same colour!! and they have produced this gorgeous chocolate colour, very pleasing )

I know its early days but her coat is already feels silky soft and shines in the sun.

And now to the other new additions, Millie's pups, they were a week old Monday and boy have they grown! We had waited all weekend for them to arrive, but the first eventually arrived at 1.30am on Monday morning, fairly quickly followed by four more, so the final total being five, two girls and three boys.  

I have got to say I think I prefer alpaca births as they don't seem to last as long!!  I am sure her first stage of labour started on the Saturday and was convinced they were going to arrive early Sunday evening, but oh no it carried on all through the night until the early hours, I was beginning to get worried that they might have got stuck and it was going to be a out of hours vet visit, but she didn't seem stressed so I just sat with her and eventually the first one arrived, the others came out a lot easier.

And here they are at 9 days old and boy have they grown!!

Cute little things with lovely markings, am sure we will have no problem finding them lovely new homes when the time comes.

Well thats it for now, hopefully wont be as long till the next blog

Surprise Arrival!!

Well I have sat here waiting for Millie our Jack Russell to have her puppies, she is rather large and due today.

But I had another arrival which was a total surprise!!  On Monday I weaned last years babies from their mums (see photo below) I had decided to keep the weanling's in the the paddock next to the barn, where I can get them in at night and give them there supper and give them a fuss, they have settled well and several of them have become very friendly and come up for a kiss (although we do have one little boy that spits at me rather than kiss me, thank goodness its just air he is spitting, naughty boy!!)

And I put the mums into our top far field, and the boys came into the big field between the weanlings paddock and the girls field.

Well the idea was we didn't have any girls due until next month, so they would be fine up in the top field for a couple of weeks and then come back into the main field at the beginning of April, by which time mum and weanling should have adjusted to being parted.

But things had to change very quickly this morning!!  At 7.30am I had done my usual feed round and everyone seemed fine.  I came back in to have breakfast.  At 8.30 I happened to glance up to the top field where the girls are, and I could see one of them going around in circles looking behind them!!  I could see it was a brown Suri, getting the faithful binoculars out I could see it was Bonnie and something was hanging out the back.  Well she is not due until next month!!

So here was the problem, it was very cold and breezy out there so I knew somehow I would need to get her and the cria back down into the barn, but needed to move the boys out of the main field so I could let all the girls back into the main field which adjoins the barn.  So I quickly got the quad out, got the birthing box ready and went out to round up the boys into one of the smaller paddock.  As I drove up the field I could see there was now a bundle on the floor and all the girls were gathering around to have a look.

Luckily the boys were quite obliging and went straight into the small paddock, by the time I got to the top field the cria was already sat up! what a strong cria.  It was quite cold and breezy up there so I stepped in straight away and gave her a brisk rub with the towel, sprayed the cord, put a rug on her and checked the sex, it was a gorgeous chocolate colour GIRL! a very strong girl, not showing any prem signs, her teeth had erupted, her ears were erect and she had no signs of flipper feet.  It was just 15 minutes from when I noticed Bonnie going around in circles and the cria on the floor, yet an hour earlier there was no signs of a cria arriving!!

I carried the cria down on the quad, and Bonnie being a devoted mum didn't take much encouragement to follow me down.  I left them to get acquainted in a nice warm stable with a lovely straw bed. 

Within the hour she was up and seeking the milk bar.

What a strong and clever girl for finding the milk bar so quickly, especially with all the fleece to contend with! I hand to lie on the floor to check she was feeding ok, not a problem there.

What a lovely way to start the birthing season off, a strong, healthy little girl even if she took me by surprise!!

Now I will need to keep a close eye on Bonnie's best friend Cleo who gave birth within five minutes of Bonnie last year and they both ended up attaching to the same cria!!  Although there is no signs yet of her giving birth (or shouldn't I say that after my surprise this morning!)

And also back to waiting for Millie to deliver her pups.  More up-date on that when it happens