Enough Already!

The last few weeks have been a catalogue of problems and apparently life is thinking that we have not had our fair share of them.

 

Bjorn’s cria has been making steady improvement with the lax tendons in his legs and on Sunday evening we even let him out of his pen for a few minutes.   He seemed a little depressed and Bjorn was anxious to be out with the herd.  The cria did well and enjoyed his time and even tried to run and buck a little. 

 

By Monday morning though I could tell something was not right, the cria was lethargic and was not nursing as frequently as before.  We weighed him only to discover he had lost weight.  Something was definitely amiss and so we took his temperature to see if that would give us any clues.  The poor little cria’s temperature was 103.8, which is too high for a cria (normal temperature being 101.5 to 102.5).  We gave the cria some banamine to help reduce his fever and started him on some MSE drench.  We also started him on a course of Tucoprim, which is an antibiotic.  We kept a close eye on the little guy during the day and by early afternoon he seemed a little brighter but still not right.  We took his temperature again and this time it was 104.8, we were not progressing in the right direction with this cria.  So in addition to the Tucoprim we started him on some Naxcel.  Naxcel is a good antibiotic but you do have to be careful when using it in crias as it can destroy their intestinal flora.  In our case the MSE drench should provide good probiotics to help keep the crias intestinal flora healthy.

 

Monday evening brought us another problem to deal with when we went out to do evening chores and discovered our horse Sabre had a hole in his side.  The hole was about 8”long, 4” wide and was deep; fortunately while there was a lot of damage to the skin layers the abdominal cavity was still intact.  But of course Monday was a holiday and there wasn’t any veterinary service available.

 

In his younger days Sabre was very accident prone (perhaps his recent injury was him reliving his youth!) and I have had various experiences with various injuries on Sabre.  His wound was not bleeding and the blood that had flowed at the time of the injury had coagulated on the wound.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that it is often better to leave something like that than to try and clean it as the blood has formed a barrier on the wound giving it some protection.  Sabre didn’t seem too bothered by his wound and so we penned him and his mother Savannah up for the night knowing that we would be off to the vets in the morning.  

 

Loading Sabre into the trailer the next morning was not an easy task.  He has never been fond of loading and unfortunately he loaded in the trailer, tried to turn round and get out again and banged his head on the trailer in the process.  It took forever to get him back in that trailer and we had to recruit help to make it happen, but eventually he was on his way to the vets.  Just to make things really fun, once he was at the vets Sabre refused to get out of the trailer!  He did come out eventually with some persuasion and received the veterinary care he needed.  Now we have the task of caring for his wound, but fortunately it is not too difficult and only needs to be done a couple of times a day.  It’s going to take several weeks for the wound to heal, but our vet assures us it will heal and Sabre will be fine.

 

Just to round things off on Tuesday afternoon we had a delivery of a semi truckload of wheat hay.  All was looking good until we realized that the hay was just a few inches too high to allow the semi truck to get through our entry way (our entry way is 13 feet high and usually is not a problem to a semi truck).  So instead of being able to park the truck close to the hay barn we had to park it out on the road, unload the hay onto a tractor and a forklift, drive each load to the hay barn and then restack the hay.  That took a while (several hours actually!) and we certainly got our exercise for the day.  If you have never had the opportunity to unload 530 bales of hay from a trailer and then restack them then you need to give it a try at least once in your lifetime.  I promise you once you have done so, the next time you see a semi load of hay going down the road you will have a much greater appreciation for how it all got stacked on the truck in the first place.

 

Once again Bob Dart from Llano Soleado Alpacas came to our aid, kindly loaning us his forklift and spending time helping unload the hay.  His daughter Abby also came to help in the evening and busily loaded up the loose hay from the truck into buckets for us so that it would not be wasted.  Thanks again Bob and Abby, we couldn’t have done it without you.  Thank you also goes to Alex Stewart who is helping us on the farm this summer.  It was Alex’s first day with us yesterday and boy did he learn the meaning of the word labor!  Still he helped out without complaint and has even told us he is ready to help us with the next load.  Yes, our hay fun is not over yet as semi load number two will be here Friday and we get to do the hay unloading all over again.   Ah, life on the farm – great isn’t it!

 

Rosemary

Lack of Sleep Delays Light Bulb Coming On

Our bottle feeding of our cria continues, although I suspect that before too long nature will take it’s course and our services will no longer be needed by our little female cria.  Yesterday she started refusing bottles at times having already nursed from her dam; we have now extended the period between her bottles with the hope that she will go to nurse from her dam more and the bottle less.

 

Saturday found us shearing alpacas again and we managed to get most of them done but there are still enough left that we need to plan another whole day of shearing.  The fleece pile is rapidly growing and one of our next tasks will be to decide which fleece goes to which co-op or producer.   Not just yet though, as by Saturday evening it was about all Ric and I could do to stay awake during dinner!

 

No more of the girls have had their crias yet, although Rebecca had us going for a little while during Saturday’s shearing.  It turned out to be a false alarm and most likely the cria was in uncomfortable position and has now righted itself.

 

Our cria with the weak knees is showing improvement (that’s his picture at the beginning of this blog entry(.  On our veterinarians advice he has been confined to a small pen with his dam to restrict his movement and prevent him from stretching his tendons in the wrong direction.  He is able to nurse from his dam and has been gaining weight steadily.  Our veterinarian had us start him on regular doses of vitamin’s A, D and E which we administer in a specially made good flavored paste, however the other day it suddenly dawned on me that we really had not been thinking straight.  There was our veterinarian having us administer vitamins A, D and E and there were we keeping our boy and his dam Bjorn in a pen inside the shelter in the shade.  Surely we should be taking advantage of those sunny New Mexico days by allowing our cria to sit out in the sunshine and absorb his vitamins naturally as well as through the paste!  It took a while for that light bulb to come on, but we’ll use the excuse of lack of sleep!  So now we have taken to moving Bjorn and her boy to an outside pen in the sunshine at least for a couple of hours a day and it seems that we are seeing even better improvement since we have been doing that, although that might be completely coincidental.

 

Rosemary

Another Plate to Juggle

My poor blog has been neglected these last few days as my time has been needed elsewhere.  Shearing is still a priority and gradually we are getting there.  We still have 19 alpacas left to shear but some of those are girls who are due to have their crias at any time and who will probably not be shorn until after giving birth.

 

In addition to shearing we are still bottle feeding our little female cria who was born in the early hours of last Saturday morning.  She is up to 3 hours between bottles now and most likely will soon be able to go four hours between feedings.  She had a bit of a set back as she contracted an infection but thankfully has responded well to antibiotics and is now a lively little thing.  We have finally come up with names for her and Queen’s cria but I will disclose those in another entry. 

 

On Wednesday we were just about to start chores when we noticed that Bjorn was in labor.  Bjorn’s labor went well and within a short time she delivered a hefty 20.5 lb white male cria, followed shortly by a 9.2 lb. placenta.   That’s nearly 30 lbs that poor Bjorn was carrying around with her!  Bjorn was understandably tired after delivering such a large cria so we gave her some hay, some pellets and a 10cc dose of MSE probiotic enzymes.  We also started her on some arnica Montana to help reduce the bruising and swelling that can follow giving birth.

 

Bjorn’s cria is a beautiful boy with crimpy, shiny, dense fleece and a beautiful head style.  We are quite happy for the cria to be a male as he will not be related to most our herd.  But there is a problem with him, hopefully one that will rectify itself, for our new cria’s front legs bend backwards. 

 

We have had our vet examine our new boy and he explained he has seen this condition a lot in horses.  He does not believe the condition to caused by either nutrition or genetics and is optimistic that eventually the crias legs will be normal.  For now our vet has advised us to confine Bjorn and her cria to a small stall to reduce the area that the cria can walk in and also to protect the cria from our rambunctious weanlings.  Splinting the crias legs may be an option, but our vet tells us that in his experience the results of splinting are not much better and splinting brings with it other complications such as pressure sores.

 

So now when we go out to feed our little girl, we check on our big boy and his dam, making sure he is getting up to nurse, massaging and flexing his joints to the correct position and keeping the stall clean to prevent him from lying in the poop pile that Bjorn has established.  Poor Bjorn is anxious to be cooped up and I think that later today we will let her out for a little walk around the pasture, provided her cria does not get too upset at her being away from him for a short while.

 

It’s funny how things happen in batches, for years we have had few problems during birthing season and this year we seem to be making up for the years when we were problem free.  At the moment it feels as if we are juggling plates as we move between bottle feeding, giving medicines, working with Bjorn’s cria, watching for signs that another cria is about to be delivered, shearing and just keeping the business running in the meantime.  I have to say that if it were real plates we were juggling we would be in trouble as I have dreadful eye-hand co-ordination, so we will take the “plates” that life is throwing at us for now and hope we continue not to drop them!

 

Rosemary

Say Hello To Our Newest Arrival

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two girls who appeared to be in labor on Monday were just teasing me.  After a while they both settled down and still no cria from either one to date, but I bet it won’t be long.  I feel sure that our odd weather is having an effect on the girls; I do hope that it settles down soon so that they can deliver their crias before they get too large.

 

Our newest arrival though is anything but large.  She was born around 1 a.m. Saturday morning and we haven’t had a full nights sleep since she arrived!

 

This little girl weighed in at 13.5 lbs, a small cria and also a tired and weak one by the time she arrived.  Her dam tried to deliver her but she managed to get herself well and truly stuck and we ended up assisting with the birth.

 

We had been aware that her dam was possibly in labor late in the afternoon and so had been making regular checks to see how things were progressing.   Typically a dam that goes into labor in the late afternoon or evening will have a bad birthing presentation.  On what was going to be our last check at 12:30 a.m. I discovered the cria being presented but could only see one leg and two ears – not a normal birthing presentation.  I went up to the house and got Ric to come and help and we gathered our usual birthing supplies that we keep in a kit ready to go during birthing season.  I also made sure we had plenty of gloves and lube, as I knew we were going to have to assist with the birth.

 

When we examined the dam and cria we discovered that the crias left leg was bent back and her nose was tucked down and to the left resulting in her presenting the crown of her head to the birth canal.  I was able to free the leg, but was unable to maneuver the crias head so Ric had a try and manage to push the crias head back just enough to get her nose out through the birth canal.  The rest of the delivery was easy compared to getting the cria unstuck but naturally the dam and cria were both tired.

 

Having a cria born during the very early hours of the morning also presents another problem in that the cria needs to be dried off quickly and kept warm.  Armed with towels and a hair dryer we worked on drying off the cria while her dam took a well earned rest.  It always seems to take forever to get a cria dried, but eventually we got her dry enough to where we could put a cria coat on her and wrap her in blankets to keep her warm.  This little girl was most definitely not too thrilled about her introduction to the world and kept trying to curl up into a fetal position.

 

Our new little girl has started life with a few challenges.  Her dam was very sore following the birth and was not willing to let the cria nurse.  We were able to milk the dam out some and give the milk to the cria, but also ended up bottle feeding her some cattle colostrum for the first 24 hours.  The cria is now nursing off her dam, but needs supplementary feed to so we are giving her a bottle every two hours around the clock.  As each day goes on she gets a little stronger both physically and in her bond to her dam.

 

We did have a little set back with our new little girl when she started being lethargic and ran a temperature.  After consultation with our vet we have her on antibiotics, with her being so small the shots we are giving her seem miniscule, but they seem to be doing the trick and she has been more active since starting on them.

 

Of course we still have the job of giving her a name and as fragile she is and as much as she has hung on to life we really feel it needs to be something special, maybe as the gap between her bottles increases and we get more rest we will be able to think of something fitting for such a brave little girl.

 

Rosemary

What a Weekend!

Sometimes it doesn’t matter what plans we have made, life will tell us quite firmly that there are other things that need our attention at that moment and our plans have to fall by the wayside.

 

We had planned on shearing alpacas on Saturday and Sunday, but that was not to be.  First we had ordered some more blades and cutters for our shears and they didn’t arrive, then we were greeted with rain on Saturday morning and it continued to rain on and off throughout the day.  It is never good to shear wet alpacas and so Saturday’s weather really but an end to our plans, but even more than that was the fact that neither Ric or I got any sleep on Friday night/Saturday Morning as by 1 a.m. Saturday we were delivering a cria in the pasture and from then on our time was spent caring for the dam and the cria.  More on that situation in another blog entry, but as of now the dam is doing well and the cria is not the strongest but is hanging in there with some supplemental feeding.

 

We decided it would be foolish to put a pair of shears in Ric’s hands when he had not been to sleep since the day before and so cancelled our plans to shear on Saturday.  By Sunday we still had to care for the cria through the night but felt up to shearing and so Sunday’s shearing went ahead as planned.  We were fortunate to have lots of help show up, especially as on Sunday morning our horse Sabre decided to colic.  Thankfully one of our neighbors was able to help us with him and he seems to be doing much better now, but is still under a watchful eye.  A big thank you goes out to our neighbor Darlene for all of her help with Sabre and also to Bob, Regina, Nathan and Abby Dart, Corky Green and his grand-daughter Christina, Jennifer, Alex and Megan Stewart and Bethany Heaton for helping out with shearing on Sunday, and another thank you to our friend Bergie who loaned us some cutters and blades so that we could keep shearing.  When you are sleep deprived and stretched in many different directions it’s wonderful to have such helpful friends and neighbors.  We still have a lot of alpacas to shear but we made some good progress on Sunday.

 

As I write this blog entry it is Monday afternoon.  The day is extremely hot, our daytime is high expected to reach 95 degrees and two of our girls appear to be in labor.  Funnily enough they are mother and daughter (Bjorn and Anya).  My day is now being spent watching the girls from afar, filling water buckets with water and Gatorade, hosing down alpaca legs and bellies and of course feeding our new cria.   I have all of my birthing supplies ready, plus a jug full of electrolytes and a good power lunch to keep me going through the day.  Now all I need is two healthy crias and maybe even a good nights sleep (although I suspect that is going to be several days in the making!)

 

Rosemary

Difficult News

 

 

We received word from our small animal vet yesterday that our dear dog Sandie is in the advanced stages of cancer.  During the tests and x-rays that the vet ran she discovered that Sandie’s lungs are filled with small tumors.  The vet has told us that these are the sort of tumors that occur when a cancer has metastasized and that most likely the main area of cancer is in another part of her body.  At this time we suspect that the cancer may be in Sandie’s brain as she is showing some neurological symptoms.  Amazingly though she is still able to breath normally despite the tumors in her lungs.

 

After consultation with our vet we have decided to bring Sandie home to live out her days.  She is not in any distress or pain, just getting a little weaker each day.  Should Sandie show distress then we will take the difficult but kindest step of putting her to sleep.

 

It has been difficult accepting the news of our dear and trusted friend.  We have had Sandie for 13 years, having found her as a stray in a snowstorm.  She ran up to me and grabbed my leg with her paws; something I thought was endearing at the time but later discovered was a display of dominance.

 

When we first found Sandie she was thin and tired, she had injuries to her face where people had been throwing stones at her.  We put her in our truck intending to foster her and adopt her out, but two weeks later our Golden Retriever Katy died and we felt that maybe there had been a reason behind Sandie’s arrival.

 

Sandie’s life with us has been a good one.  She has not been the easiest dog to have around as she has food aggression and dog aggression issues, but her behavioral problems led me to learn a lot about handling difficult dogs and resulted in us being able to manage her well.   Without Sandie I would not have such an understanding of dog pack mentality. 

 

As a youngster Sandie was an active dog who needed to be kept occupied.  I still remember coming home one day to find Ric sitting with his head in his hands having discovered 15 Sandie sized holes in the back yard (Sandie is about 50 lbs so the holes were large!).  A consultation with a dog trainer led us to put a wading pool in the back yard complete with floating toys.  Sandie would spend all day taking the toys out of the pool and then putting them back in again, and miraculously the hole digging stopped.

 

Sandie had such a rough start in life that we felt it was only fair to give her every chance.   In her latter years she has mellowed some but is still a feisty girl at times.  Sandie has always idolized Ric, following him around with a soppy look in those golden eyes of hers.  If ever there was a case of a dog being star struck over a human it is Sandie over Ric.

 

So we will take each day as it comes with Sandie, our vet tells us she could live any where from a few days to several months.  Each day we have with her will be a treasure and we will make sure that her final days are happy and comfortable.  When I picked Sandie up from the vet’s yesterday her tail wagged furiously when she saw me and she was anxious to get out of the vets and into the truck leaving me with no doubt that for now the right thing is for her to come home.   

Rosemary

To the Vets, to the Vets we go.

Just when we thought our regular trips to our small animal vet were going to stop another of our dogs has decided it is her turn to use up her veterinary allowance.  We finally got the all clear on our Pomeranian Toby who had been seeing the vet on a regular basis since he developed acute hemolytic anemia following a vaccine reaction.  Toby will be on half a prednisolone tablet for the rest of his life, but thankfully his blood levels are back to normal and he is once again the speeding ball of fur that we know and love.

 

Now Sandie our Aussie Shepherd/Retriever cross is under the weather.  Sandie has been acting a little oddly since I came back from England, but by yesterday she had developed a head tilt and her right hip gave out on her yesterday evening.  So off to the vets we went and Sandie got to spend the night there.  So far her blood work looks fairly good with just a slight anemia and so the vet will be taking X-rays of her hips this morning to see if that is where the source of Sandie’s problem lies.  Sandie is at least 13 years old (she was already an adult dog when we found her) and so unfortunately age is not on her side.  Still there is a lot that can be done with modern veterinary medicine and hopefully Sandie will be home soon as the house does seem empty without her.

 

Having spent time at the small animal vet it was then time to head off to the large animal vet with Queen and her new cria in order to get the cria’s blood drawn for his IgG test, BVDV (Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus) PCR test and his registration blood sample.  Not all breeders do IgG tests on their crias but we have always run them on our crias and it gives us a good idea of the immune system of the cria.  A negative BVDV PCR test will be required for us to eventually be able to show the cria.  It is a one time test and so we figure it is just as well to get that done and obtain blood for the crias registration card all at the same time as the IgG test.  Queen’s boy is a very lively lad and so I am sure his test results will come back good.  He loves to run and during our late night check of the girls yesterday he was seen to be chasing all over the pasture, bugging the other alpacas and then eventually returning to Queen so that he could nudge her to get up from her cushed position so he could nurse.

 

So yesterday was a day of veterinary appointments, and today who knows maybe, just maybe someone else will decide to have her cria and hopefully without the need for a vet.  I’ll keep you posted.

 

Rosemary

Crias are so distracting!

Whenever we have a new cria born I pretty much write off the next couple of days.  I know I won’t get much done, for newborn crias are very distracting.

 

The day crias are born we keep them under a close watch to get a feel for their behavior and energy levels.  A healthy cria will be up on it’s feet within the hour and while their legs will initially be shaky and maybe a little stiff, by the end of the day they should be moving well and active.  We also watch to make sure that the cria is nursing well, checking that the cria is actually latching on to the dam’s teats and displaying a milk moustache indicating that the cria is getting milk.  Crias can do a really good job of looking as if they are getting milk when in fact they are not.

 

It’s important to know if the cria has passed its meconium plug.  The meconium plug usually consists of a black sticky mass, although sometimes I have seen meconium plugs that are more of a dark green in color.  If the cria doesn’t pass the meconium plug it can result in the cria being uncomfortable and developing a stomach ache.  If we do not see either the plug being passed or signs that the plug has been passed (poop on the crias rear or finding the plug in the pasture) we will usually administer an enema to get things moving.

 

Then there is the task of making sure that the older crias do not get too rough with the newborn cria.  Crias are naturally drawn to other crias and want to play, but sometimes the play can get a bit rough and it might be necessary to intervene.  Often the newborn crias dam will see off any boisterous crias but if she is feeling sore or tired from birthing she may not do that on the first day.   An extra bucket of hay can be a good distraction for the older crias, or occasionally it might be necessary to restrict the older crias access to the new cria.  Usually by day two the new cria has found his or her feet and can easily out run the new play mates.

 

Finally there is just the joy of watching a new cria explore its new world, it’s a time that I will never tire of, a time that is worth putting away the demands of the world for a day or two for with each cria that time will never be repeated.

 

Rosemary

Surprise – In more ways than one!

 

 

 

Well did we get a surprise yesterday, Queen had her cria early and we were not even home!

 

We left mid morning to go and shear alpacas for Jan and Corky Green of Muleshoe, Texas.  Knowing that we had several girls due and overdue we checked everyone thoroughly in the morning.  There were three girls who were slightly puffy under their tails and none of the pregnant girls was showing a well developed udder.  In maiden alpacas it is not unusual for them not to show many signs of imminent birth, but usually with your more experienced dams there are signs that birthing is not far away.

 

Having checked the girls thoroughly we watched their behavior for a while.  All of them were eating heartily and none of them were acting uncomfortably.

 

I was not entirely happy about leaving the girls for the day, but Jan and Corky were short of help with their shearing and after they had spent all of Sunday helping us with our shearing I hated to leave them in the lurch.  So I called Bob and Regina Dart of Llano Soleado Alpacas, our Clovis alpaca neighbors, and asked if they could check on our girls during the day just in case something happened.

 

Well happen it did!  When Bob came to check on the girls at 1:30 pm he discovered that Queen had delivered her cria, a beautiful medium brown boy out of our Color Champion Herdsire Windrush Jennifer’s Zindel.  Bob says the cria was still wet when he found him so he could not have been born long.  Both the cria and Queen were doing well and Bob stepped into alpaca delivery mode and very kindly made sure that Queen passed her placenta, the cria was nursing well and dipped the crias naval in iodine.  He then put Queen and the cria in a pen with some hay and water to allow them time to bond.

 

As soon as Bob called me to give me the news I could tell from the chuckle in his voice that something had happened, his words were “Queen fooled you” and fool us she did!

 

Just before leaving we had seen Queen on the poop pile.  She only visited it once and she was not at all puffy in her tail area.  We watched as she waddled off to a different area of the pasture, she didn’t lie down, but rather stopped and looked over her shoulder at us as if to say “What do you two want”.   (Bob thinks she was actually telling us to hurry up and leave so she could have her cria in peace!)

 

Queen is an independent alpaca and out of all of the girls she is the one who I would expect to want to wait until we are out of the way before giving birth.  She is an experienced dam and I was with her last year when she gave birth and then she gave definite signals that she was in labor.  With that pregnancy she was two weeks overdue, with this one she was early.

 

 

 

Thankfully all went well with Queens labor and we have a lovely 20.1 lb boy to watch as he gallops around the pasture.  As huge as Queen was prior to giving birth I am glad she delivered a little early as if her cria had been much bigger I wonder if it would have been a difficulty birth.  Thankfully too we have such good alpaca neighbors and friends in Bob and Regina who were able to come out and check on the girls for us – and who knew what to do when they found a new cria to deal with.  Thank you Bob and Regina!

 

So today we are scheduled to do some more shearing for Valerie Smith in Plainview, Texas, but after yesterday’s experience with Queen I am afraid Ric will be going to Plainview on his own and I will be staying home to watch pregnant alpacas who will no doubt decide that as I have stayed home none of them will give birth!

 

Rosemary

Thirteen Down, Many More to Go!

Our first shearing day of the year went well, we got a later start than we had hoped for but soon got into the swing of things.  Our helpers were quick to learn and ensured that the alpacas were safely restrained during the process and the fleece collected.  A big thank you to Jan and Corky Green and Val and Allie Smith for giving up their Sunday (and Mother’s Day) to give us a hand.

 

It seems as if every year we figure out something new to make shearing go a little better.  This year we came up with the idea of using a disposable diaper to catch any “leaks” from the alpacas that were being shorn.  We only really had one leaker but the disposable diaper worked well in keeping urine off the shorn fleece and the shearing mat, you just have to make sure you place it at the right angle!

 

For the most part the alpacas were calm during shearing.  To me it is one of the advantages of shearing your own herd, you can be more relaxed in your pace and the atmosphere is generally calmer, which can only be better for the alpacas.  A couple of the boys almost seemed grateful to be shorn, lying calmly on the shearing mats and almost dozing as their fleece came off.  

 

Of course by evening the temperature dropped considerably and so we gave the boys some slightly higher protein hay to help them cope with a drop in temperature and being newly shorn.  They all have shelter where they can get out of the wind and we had some straw bedding down to give them some insulation as they cushed.

 

As expected our fleeces were dirtier than in previous years, the blowing dust had made it into most of the alpacas and as the shears hit the dirt it dulled the blades and made them work harder.   Usually we would have got many more alpacas shorn per blade.

 

The girls cooperated and did not have their crias, a couple of them were humming and acting a little uncomfortable yesterday and I suspect that it will not be long before we have crias running around the pastures.  We have now reached an interesting point in our due date calculations where if the due girls birth a little early and the overdue girls finally have their crias the girls could all give birth at the same time.  Hopefully that will not happen, as it would make for a chaotic scene! 

 

Rosemary