Young ones spend a lot of time with their mothers but they also find time to play, running and chasing each other. Their run usually starts with a hop or sideways skip before they break into a breakneck helter skelter. They seldom run in straight lines, instead they zig-zag, bouncing like gazelle, and, at times, seeming to float over the ground, so elegant and effortless are their strides. Then they play neck wrestling; each trying to press down the neck of the one they are playing with. This can go on for an hour or more and in the summer evenings there is nothing more restful or entertaining than watching the early evening capers of the herd as the younger members run and play their games of catch and take-down, mere yards from our sundeck.

Early each morning we feed them their grain and mineral supplements; each in his or her own bowl set down in individual stalls. The bowls are raised off the ground to minimize the possibility of parasite invasion. In this way we monitor how much each animal receives. Nursing mothers, heavily pregnant mothers, and breeding herdsires get extra rations. As we open up the store room and begin to fill the bowls, we are besieged by a pressing mass of alpacas, each attempting to ensure that they don’t miss out on the ‘goodies’. The barn fills with animals that push forward, jostling and pressing against us, making it difficult to squeeze through them as we take the bowls to their individual feeding places. We could, of course, stop this from happening, but we find it so much a part of what the animals are all about that we love it.

Late one cool night in October, a male cria was born very prematurely weighing an ounce over 6 pounds - a mere 1/3 of the typical alpaca birth weight. When we found him lying in the sand, wrapped in his birth membrane, apparently lifeless, his mother was standing a short distance away, crying, and the other females in the herd were solemnly standing around in a semi-circle watching. He looked dead. However, we went through the motions and wrapped him in a towel and began to work on him, just in case he was still alive. Even after we thought we saw a slight movement in one of his eyelids, we did not expect the little bundle of bones to survive. His mother had no milk or colostrum to give him, but we decided to do whatever we could to save him. We first breathed into his mouth, then wrapped him in blankets, and ran with him into our home where we warmed him and tried to get him to accept liquids.

Our next few days were dedicated almost entirely to looking after the tiny, helpless creature. For the first few nights he slept between us in our bed while we fed him a few drops of synthetic colostrum and goats’ milk from an eye dropper every twenty or thirty minutes. Then, when we began to dare to hope that he might survive, we made a bed for him alongside our own bed so that we could keep a close eye on him and feed him a few drops of goats’ milk and vitamins every forty minutes or so during the next couple of nights.

We put him out in the barn with his mother during the warm days so that he could help induce her milk, bringing him inside only when it went cool at night. His mother allowed us to do this, seeming to know that we were doing our best for him, but she spent the entire night looking through the windows of the house until we returned him to her each morning. When we finally returned him to his mom permanently, she took over the full-time job of nursing him to health and strength as her milk had come in and he was nursing from her freely. His neck was stretched to its maximum as he reached for the life-giving fluid dangling high above his little head. Despite our ‘interference’ she did not turn her back on the little fellow, making him an orphan like so many animals would have done. Her understanding of what we were trying to do was amazing.

His mother, Fudge Cookie, was staying with us for a short while when the premature birth occurred, but, at eight weeks old, the cria, Mr. Chip, finally left us to be taken with his mother, to the farm of his owners. We are proud to say that he left us, a fine, fit, energetic, and mischievous young alpaca, and with him went our hearts. We have since talked to many breeders, veterinarians, and other ‘experts’, but none has ever heard of a cria so small and so premature surviving and becoming a healthy alpaca. Mr. Chip is truly one of a kind!

That was an amazing and rewarding experience – one that we and his owners will never, ever forget!

Dear Gordon and Gillian,

How can we ever thank you for the care you have given our alpacas while they were with you these past few months? ... The spirit with which you manage your farm is awesome. You are selfless and without agenda....I am blessed to have had your guidance. Your medical decisions saved the life of my premature alpaca, for which I will always be most grateful. I thank you for letting him sleep in your bed and giving him life-saving warmth the first week of his life. You are his hero!

Blessings,

Laurie Saputo
My Turn Farm
Ocala, FL