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Baby Irene Blows Into Town!
This morning my husband woke me up at 6:30 am, lights on, the usual routine for going to work. But it is Sunday. And it is hurricane day. I was going to sleep in! Why are you waking me up?
He says Ross called and we have a baby. Today? Really? With the hurricane blowing in? Couldn’t be worse timing. That cria isn’t due for almost two more weeks. Ross is on his way to the field to bring the baby in because it is laying in a big puddle, didn’t follow her Mom into the barn.
I was ready to write this cria off. I knew it was a high risk baby because we are 40 minutes away, Ross has never attended a baby before, and its a fall baby in New England. Now add the hurricane today of all days. Ross is going to find a dead baby in the field I said to myself. Very sad but what can I do?
If it’s a girl and she makes it we have to name her Irene I say. If it’s a boy we’ll name him Hurricane. Jonathan laughs.
Ross calls back. The baby is fine! He dried it off some. Mom and baby are in the shelter with the rest of the girls and everybody is penned in. Is it a boy or a girl? Ross doesn’t know. OK! We have to go see and look after the cria. We are on our way over, a 40 minute drive. The weather isn’t too bad yet. We can get home again before the really bad weather is scheduled to set in at noon. Zarah is staying home. We will have to come back.
The drive over was smooth, like any other rainy day in Massachusetts. It is also really warm out, wet and hot.
It’s a girl! She is still very damp when we get there so I spent some time toweling and blow drying her. It is important that they be dry and warm enough. She seemed to like it. Mom is attentive but nervous with the weather and the alpaca crowd in the shelter. Baby definitely wants to nurse.
We decide to move them to the hay shed so Jonathan and Ross get stuff rearranged in there. It will be quieter and probably drier, less chance of the baby getting stuck near the open shelter door, they can snuggle way back in the shelter. Also easier for Ross to check on the baby. I halter up Opal and Jonathan walks her. I carry the baby and Opal comes along humming and fussing. Opal is a good momma. The move goes smoothly and they are all settled in. Umbilicle corn dipped in Iodine, she is 13.5 lbs which is more than I thought, she is not a big baby.
I wish I knew she was nursing well but we can’t stay any longer. She is trying, and seems like mom has milk available although I can’t get any for her teats myself. Baby Irene will have to survive until tomorrow. We have no milk replacer in hand and we have to go home. Ross will check on her throughout the day.
The drive home was nerve wracking. Jonathan did great. Lots of tree debris down in the streets. Big tree branches down in a number of places and we had to keep detouring. One detour took us to an even bigger down branch and we had to backtrack then detour again. These are long winding detours on rural highways, not simple around the block things. One branch we ended up 4 wheeling around on the corner of someone’s yard. We weren’t the first to do it either. The last detour was down into Rhode Island and then back up through Connecticut. We were lost, the RI cop we talked to couldn’t help, didn’t know his way around Massachusetts.
So I tried the GPS on my phone. It worked! Unbelievable. It never works when it is cloudy and it never works out in the rural areas we were in. But it did. We were only 11 miles from home in RI. So we followed the bouncing GPS ball, encountered no more down branches and we got home safe by 11 am. One and a half hours to do an otherwise 40 minute drive.
Irene is blowing outside intermittently now, sometimes quiet, sometimes pounding rain and wind. Cable and power were up when we got home but are down now so I am composing this on my portable computer battery. I think my nerves are starting to calm a bit.
I’m hoping for the best for baby Irene in the barn with her Momma. I know Ross will do his best for her and she is dry and the air is warm. We’ll have to go back out to see her tomorrow once the storm clears itself up.
It’s been a big day already and its only half over.
Spanky Irene
Irene is doing just great! Thanks for asking.
She is beautiful. Long straight legs, nicely proportioned neck, soft incredibly curly fleece and a delicate beautiful face. We’ve seen a few alpaca babies over time and we all agree she is absolutely the most beautiful cria we have ever had. She is also bright, curious, and energetic. Everything we want an alpaca baby to be.
She is gaining weight well, a pound every two days more or less, and was returned to the girls herd pen along with her Momma Opal a few days ago. Opal had a really bad bout of diarrhea the day after Irene was born. She ended up at the vet for 24 hours getting rumen transfusions and then a week of vitamins and antibiotics. She is totally recovered now.
For the first little bit all the aunties just wouldn’t leave her alone and Irene felt a little bit harrassed. Nobody was hurting her, just wanted to sniff her and check her out. Auntie alpacas LOVE the babies. Irene got pulled out of the pen very shortly after being born because of the storm, so she was completely novel all over again.
Irene almost immediately found the dusting spot and turned herself into a light fawn alpaca. She has been alternately nibbling grass, nursing, and dashing about the yard. She is very hard to catch already, quick and slippery so her morning jacket off and evening jacket on routine is a little bit challenging.
Soon she will weigh 20 lbs and we won’t be concerned about her ability to keep warm all by herself anymore. Until then cria can’t regulate their own body temperature reliably and for the last few days it was cold and rainy so Ross has been chasing Irene around with the jacket, pretty funny. The sun is back out now and it is lovely out so she is going to be just fine.