Alpacas and other creatures

Yep, that’s Typical :-)

So, at 12:30 Kerrie (my long-suffering love) starts yelling from the main paddock. I get out there to find that Taiko has given birth.

Now - we test Alpaca pregnancies by performing a spit-off. this means that 2 weeks and then 4 weeks after a mating the male and female are re-introduced. If she is pregnant the change in hormones causes her to spit at the male and be VERY unfriendly rather than sit - the reaction if she is receptive.

Taiko had sat. She was definitively not pregnant - so, I decided to leave her fallow for a year as we were very late in the mating season.

Guess we were wrong.

The baby’s name is Aiko - “child of love” - a nice Japanese girl’s name, since she was born on Valentine’s Day. It also looks like mum might be rejecting her so we’ll be back to the 3am feedings. Hoo boy.