JandJ Chastity

JandJ Chastity

 
On Tuesday 31 May, the day after half of our herd of alpacas had been sheared Chastity arrived. Her mother Amazing Grace had not been sheared as we do not like to shear our alpacas in their last month of pregnancy. Amazing Grace is Martin's favourite alpaca, when he feeds them Grace always comes over to be fussed. We missed the birth, after the busy long day before we did not look into the field until 7.30am and Chastity was already up and about. Grace likes to have her babies early 9.15am has been the latest but 7.30am is definitely the earliest. This is Grace's 5th cria with us, she has had 3 boys Max, Lex & Rex & then last year we had a girl Chartity and this year Chastity, so our naming strategy for Grace's cria has moved to Emmerdale's Dingle names.

My Beautiful Prem - Celeste

Celeste an hour ago
Celeste just after birth

It's been quite a while since I blogged, as the day after lambing for 3 weeks, 2 days at the Heart of England Fiesta & a day shearing 26 alpacas, we found ourselves the organisers of the National Show at Newark. But I think I need to blog in order so I will go back to 11th April when we had an unexpected arrival.

Celeste was a little too early & found herself being born in the wrong paddock. We had been meaning to move her mum Cosmic for a few days & she was definitely going to be moved that afternoon but Celeste decided to arrive in the morning at 319 days. We didn't see her for probably an hour & there was a very cold wind, so we had a cold but large cria & an upset mum. Cosmic did not settle when moved into the barn & we ended up with her in another barn with a lamp & fed Celeste from a bottle until midnight. Next morning all was well, Cosmic calm & Celeste feeding from her mum, a very happy ending.

Cosmic herself was a prem she was born at 307 days a very small cria but she had a strong will & was very clever. Martin milked her mum Plum & fed her every hour for the first 24 with a syringe. We fed her from the bottle pretending it was one of her mum's teats so she had to look for the milk in the right place & after 6 days she moved off the bottle on to her mum. Today she's a lovely big strong girl you'd never believe she was a prem.