How Quickly They Grow up

Any of us who have raised kids or watched them grow up knows how fast they do grow up.  With alpaca cria it seems just exponentially quicker.  They are trying to stand and nurse almost immediately after they are born and are generally standing, walking, nursing and keeping up with mom within their first 45 minutes of life.


Within moments after they are born a newborn cria will
be sitting up right.

 Since shearing, the most exciting events on the ranch have definitely been the arrival of new cria.  Monday we had our 4th of the year, a beautiful female out of SHRA Zephyr and Snowmass Golden Victory.  After 3 boys in a row, we were definitely excited to have a girl!  Also, this has been a greatly anticipated cria since Zephyr was the last alpaca we purchased to infuse some new genetics into our breeding program.  Adding a female with her production record to our program and combining with Golden Victory was a very calculated move to produce something special.  We have waited almost 2 years to see the first results of that plan.  First step finally accomplished, cria on the ground.

About 15 minutes old

Zephyr's cria was born Monday morning, a rather cool and cloudy day.  It is always to a newborn's advantage to have a nice, sunny, moderately warm day to start life outside the womb, but clearly they don't get to choose.  We were both there to witness the entire labor and delivery....not so unusual for Deb, she stays close to home during cria watches, but seems like I miss most of the births anymore still having a job away from the ranch.  I love being there for those first steps, watching the moms be so encouraging and watching the newborn so quickly kick into survival mode of being mobile and finding nourishment.  After lots of towelling to dry her off and warm her up, she was fighting to get up on her feet and stand. 

 

Things start out a little wobbly on those long legs!

Alpaca moms are very protective and rarely will leave the side of their newborn cria.  They hum to them encouragingly and are very protective.  Zephyr was one of those extremely protective moms who really did not like us too close to her cria at all and worked very hard at letting us know she had everything handled!  If we weren't home a healthy thriving cria doesn't need our assistance.  Since we are there, it's hard to resist the urge to help a new cria get those long legs underneath them and stabilized to take those first steps.  Those first steps are usually aimed towards finding the milk wagon and re-nourish that spent energy it takes getting this far in life.  Watching how quickly this all transpires compared to other species, and even humans, is truly amazing.

Zephyr and her new little girl~

Everyone always wants to great the new little cria.  Zephyr doesn't necessarily
look happy about having to share her newborn, but it is the alpaca way~

After just 2 days Zephyr's cria is out and about with the rest of the group.  She has "fluffed" up and we can see and feel a little more what her fiber is like.  As far as looks wise, she is gorgeous!  She still stays very close to her mom, even though the other cria want her to join in their games.  She will be running and tearing around with them soon enough in the next day or two.

This is about as close as they are most of the time

Even when it's time for a nap, Zephyr grazes nearby
to keep watch.

And we're out~