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Wednesday 19 December 2012

Meet our new cria - Macquarie Springs Poppy

Poppy - 3 hours old - with Mum (Malibu - grey) and Aunty Vodka (white)
Daughter and I had spent two hours alternately managing 2y.o and weeding the acre of front garden.  We had lots of rain recently, which was good as everything was so dry, but then the weeds just come from nowhere! Once 2y.o had mowed the lawns with his mower, pruned a few of the flower heads off (he has trouble differentiating between the flowers and weeds LOL), tried to stab the cat discreetly with the garden fork and attempted to climb over the driveway gate and became stuck at the top..it was time to pop him into bed for his nap (ahhhhh).  Daughter and I were enjoying the peace when she looked out of the windows across the paddock to see a new Alpaca!
Malibu had given birth, probably about an hour before!  Her little dark brown cria was running alongside her, with a few wobbles, and the rest of the herd were following with great interest.  Daughter and I rushed out to have a look...
Boo seemed fine, albeit rather skinny, with no signs of the birth but a small amount of dried blood on her back leg.  The cria was up, alert and STUNNING! Vodka is the (over)protective Aunty, and tried to block the cria from our view. She was spitting off the rest of the herd while Boo munched away on the grass.
Mother and daughter
We quickly got some feed organised, which distracted the rest of the herd, and gave us a chance for a closer look as we fed Boo and Voddy.  It was really windy, and the Cria was being blown about a bit, so (after the last time) we decided not to take any chances and we put Daughters' hand-made cria jacket on.  Boo was fine with me handling the baby , she just clucked away to it, Voddy was more protective (maybe because I took hers previously?) and kept pressing her head against me and gently pushing me away.
Poppy- very interested in the camera
We did a very quick check...a little girl! We put the jacket on (Daughter calls it a solar panel) and left them all to it.  Boo checked her baby was ok, then went back to eating.  Voddy wasn't happy with the jacket and tried to nuzzle it off!
The cria is MacQuarie Springs Poppy.
Poppy tried to suckle from Voddy, and then went to Boo and had a big drink.  I love how these girls work as a team...Mum needs a rest and to eat so Aunty looks after the baby.  Exactly the other way around when Voddy had Bailey.
LOL, photo-bomb by Vodka!
Needless to say, it was a very good day (no stress as we didn't know) where nature took it's course :)
Welcome to the world - Poppy :)

1 comment:

  1. Now thats a real Christmas present! Hope Poppy is doing fine. Shirley & Robbie

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