Well Look Who’s Here!

 

Clarissa's Cria

 

 

 

Saturday morning as we were doing chores we noticed Clarissa walking a little stiffly.  Waddling around with her tail in the air it was apparent that she was in labor.

 

According to our records Clarissa wasn’t supposed to be having her cria until mid November so for her labor was about a month early.  All progressed well though with her labor and she delivered a little white male cria.

 

Clarissa’s cria was indeed little weighing in at only 11.9 lbs, the smallest we have had born on the farm to date, but apart from his small size he was healthy and strong.  He was soon sitting in a cushed position and then was trying to stand looking for Clarissa and wanting to nurse.

 

Once we had dried off the cria and made sure he was nursing well, we put him and Clarissa in a catch pen to give them time alone to bond.  With Clarissa and her cria settled we went back to our breeding records to check when Clarissa was bred.

 

Clarissa actually bred four times, once on October 27, once on November 10, once on November 20 and then again on December 2.  The first three breedings had been to our junior herdsire Travesura’s Altiplano Treasure and at that time Treasure did not have any confirmed pregnancies.  Having tried Clarissa and Treasure three times, apparently without success we then bred Clarissa to our herdsire Windrush Moonlight Surprise who is a proven herdsire.  Following Clarissa’s breeding to Moonie she had three behavior tests where she rejected the male and then was confirmed pregnant, so we were thinking that the breeding to Moonie was the successful one.

 

But now we have a cria, who really doesn’t look like Moonie, and apart from being small looks to be full term.  So the question is for this cria “Whose your Daddy”!  Is he a premature Moonie cria, or is he a small full term Treasure cria?  Well once we send in his blood card to the Alpaca Registry the DNA testing will reveal all, until then all we can do is guess.

 

At this point I am suspecting that our latest little boy is a Treasure cria; both Treasure and Clarissa are small which might explain the cria’s small size.  Moonie is a larger male and I feel that if the cria was over a month premature we would have some other indications that he was premature such as floppy ears, teeth not being emerged or being down in the pasterns.

 

Until we get the DNA results all we can do is speculate and be happy that we have a healthy but tiny cria (and he’s quite adorable too!).

 

Rosemary