Well jury duty is over. We deliberated for about 2 1/2 hours on Friday afternoon and came to the right decision. It was an interesting experience, I met some new friends and I believe we made a very important decision in the life of a little six year old child.
Since I have been back ‘at the ranch’ things have been busy. Saturday we were busy moving animals around as we integrated some who are boarding into a pasture with some of our girls. Also, Stonewall was busy on Saturday doing some breedings. That always makes him happy. You can almost see him standing with a briefcase in hand waiting at the gate to ‘go to work’ . He seems to know when there are ‘new’ girls on the ranch and he’s sure they are all for him. News flash Stonewall – Renoir is going to be busy this fall/winter too!
And on Sunday I spent all day at Tierra Prometida attending a parasitology class from a well known and respected camelid vet and breeder of suri alpacas, Toni Cotton. The class included hands on fecal testing and microscope work. It was great and we identified lots of common parasites that we have around this area. Good stuff.
One very interesting note: As I drove out of our ranch around 7:15am on Sunday morning I noticed Annie lying on her side far out in the pasture. Her cria, La Salle, was near her kind of pawing at her and rubbing on her. I stopped my car, got out , went inside the big gate to check on her when I saw her lift her head and look at me. I thought that was comfort enough that she looked at me and MOVED! (Whenever I see an animal lying on their side the first thing that pops in my head is – is it dead?) Well, I was wrong in that thinking. As I found out from Chuck later in the day when he got down to feed about two hours later, Annie was still down and her cria was trying to nurse from her while down. He called to Annie and she didn’t get up. After some muscle, Chuck got her up and got her to walk a bit, but her front legs were shaking. Not knowing what was wrong he brought her in to the barn and tried to take her temp. None of the thermometers were working. It was 31 degrees outside and the thermometer was registering very low. Those digital thermometers are great for reading temps fast, but when they don’t work – they REALLY don’t work!
Chuck worked with Annie for a while, he got her to drink and eat some hay and by later than afternoon she was acting normal. And, this morning she is back to sweet Annie. I think she had colic. We have had some abrupt temperature changes lately and also some very diverse temperature ranges within a day. 30ish degrees in the morning with 70ish degrees in the afternoon. Big changes!
Since this happened I have learned that alpacas can get colic and they are best treated with a little walking around, some warm water with electrolytes and a little hay to get their rumen going. Chuck did try to give Annie some MSE probiotics, but she just spit it out. If I had been there it would’ve been a little easier to help Annie, but Chuck did a fine job.
