August 08
Welcome to this new journal about the lives of your friendly neighbourhood Alpacas. As you probably know, baby Alpacas are called Cria, and this diary will no doubt mention them quite a lot so I’ve called it a Criary Diary. Actually there is probably no such word as Criary (in English anyway) so I don’t advise you to try it in Scrabble.
Anyway this is the time of year when we take our holidays, at home. We think of it as a farm holiday, and who would want to go away and miss the birth of these lovely babies.
Most cria take about 11½ months to develop, from mating to birth, and then within two weeks their mums are ready to mate again (really, they are). This means that they give birth at the same time approximately each year – very helpfully. Of course the ‘approximately’ means that my wife can spend every day for 3 weeks waiting for one female (Meg) to give birth, because she is showing all the final signs. As soon as she goes off for one day, leaving me to keep an eye on Meg of course – she chooses that day to give birth, and just for good measure, her cria’s legs get stuck so that the vet has to be called. Luckily, we have a very good vet with plenty of experience of Alpacas right in Wittersham, and he was here and got stuck in within a few minutes – thanks Reuben!
The result is Hamish – a lovely light fawn cria, who is mostly fit and healthy and quite adorable. Unfortunately he can’t walk very well just yet because he spent so long with his knees tucked up underneath him in the womb (instead of straight out), that the tendons haven’t stretched fully, so his knees still bend a little too much. It doesn’t stop him playing with the other two cria however, Humph and Hebe, even if he isn’t quite so agile just yet. Luckily, because we’re on holiday, it means that we can waste hours just watching the cria with a clear conscience, especially in the warm evenings, as they get very frisky towards dusk. If you haven’t seen one, they are rather like a cross between a week-old lamb and a fawn, but with soft curly fleeces in various colours from white, fawn, all shades of brown or even black.
As any farmer knows, it is not all a matter of watching doe-eyed frisky young things gambolling up and down the mound. We found that one lovely cria was not thriving and didn’t make it through the week; a post-mortem revealed a heart problem which caused her to fade away one night. Very upsetting of course, but part of the script when you breed animals, and the others more than make up for it. We still have one more to be born yet, so who knows what challenges that will bring.
As our birthing has been spread over several weeks so far, we have already started re-mating some of the females with some local studs. These are what we call ‘drive-by matings’ where the stud arrives, is introduced to the selected female, and if she is ready to mate again she readily sits for him. The sight of two Alpacas mating is slightly comical, but the sound is definitely quite bizarre. The male makes a strange gurgling sound called ‘orgling’, which is only ever heard during mating. Meanwhile the female just sits there looking slightly bored (possibly thinking of Chile or Peru) until they both decide it is all over (anything from 10 – 30 minutes).
A rather clever feature of Alpacas is that they are ‘induced ovulators’ which means that they can get pregnant as soon as they have been mated. Even better from our point of view is that they know within a week or so if they have conceived successfully. All we need to do is wait 7 – 10 days then re-introduce the male to the mated female, and if she has not conceived she will sit for him, but if she is pregnant she will reject him in no uncertain terms – this is called ‘spitting off’. We can therefore time the births for roughly the same time each year, when the weather is warm, and they cria have time to grow a lovely thick fleece before the winter. This is one of the few times that Alpacas do actually spit. This is a common trait of their family which includes Llamas, Vicunas, Guanacos and Camels, but most Alpacas very rarely spit, except perhaps at each other if they’re quarrelling for some reason, and you soon learn how to avoid standing in the wrong place. They are generally the most gentle and fascinating creatures, and a newly-born cria is so cute it makes a baby seal seem ugly in comparison. Alpaca-watching is certainly a great way to spend a holiday, especially in such a lovely part of the country.