HISTORY 7

September 15, 2001

This has been one horrendous week. Last Monday, September 10, Lee Ciszewski (of Almost Heaven Alpacas and Guesthouse, the people from whom we purchased our four females) called me at 6:45 pm to tell me Sarai was having some kind of problem, but she didn't know what it was. Sarai was lying down on her side, staying there for a time, getting up to walk to a new location, then going down on her side again. She had been doing this since about 5:30, and Lee thought she might be in labor. Rick and I left as soon as we could get the dogs corralled, about 6:50. When we got there, Rick had to turn right around and get back home, because he had an internet class to teach at 7:45.

Following the vet's instructions, I tried to give Sarai some Bantamine for the pain, but she rolled her eyes and bared her teeth when I came close, so Lee, with whom Sarai has lived since her birth, had to give it to her. Sarai coughed and choked on it, and it seemed to make matters worse. While we were waiting for the vet, Lee gave me a syringe I could use to try to get Kimball to take some antibiotics for his runny nose. Finally the vet arrived at about 8:30.

Dr. Hott isn't a camelid vet, but he is a large and small animal vet, so he knew how to do a physical exam - said there wasn't anything he could find. So he called Dr. Karen Baum down in Huddleston VA (the same doctor who helped us with Kipling, our first dead cria). She told Dr. Hott to do a vaginal exam, which he did, and discovered that Sarai was dilated only the diameter of his index finger. Her cria was due July 26th, so we were rather worried about her, but Dr. Hott didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with the cria except that it was not presenting itself correctly to the birth canal. He said he thought what he was feeling was a shoulder or the back. He called Dr. Baum back again, and she said we should take her down to Huddleston that very night. Dr. Hott left around 9:15, and Bob Ciszewski went to get his tractor so he could turn the trailer around. I decided to send Sobata, Sarai's mother, along with Sarai to keep Sarai company and comfort her. Rick arrived around 9:30 just as the trailer was being positioned, and rushed me back to the house so he could go to Huddleston with Bob. They left at about 11:00 pm. It's a five hour drive, which put them in Huddleston around 4:00 am. They were there helping Dr. Baum until 7:30 am.

Early the next morning, September 11, Rick called to let me know that Sarai had delivered a stillborn female cria. The cria's neck was bent completely backward over her back, and she had asphyxiated at least a whole day earlier and probably two days. Dr. Baum had to decapitate her to remove her head, and then to pull out the rest of the body. She was inside Sarai for more than two hours. When she called me, she assured me that Sarai was still hanging on, that she was getting massive doses of antibiotic, that she had a discolored, foul-smelling vaginal discharge, and was having her uterus flushed twice a day. Dr. Baum also told me that Sobata was the "absolutely perfect choice of a companion" for Sarai, that she stood near Sarai's head and hummed softly to her during the entire two hour procedure. Sobata's presence did seem to help keep Sarai calm, Dr. Baum said. I was in tears, needless to say. This was our second cria to die, and we had only expected the two for this year. I called Lee, and when I had told her what Dr. Baum had reported, she said, "Do you have your TV on?" I said no - I rarely watch TV even when Rick is home, and almost never when he isn't home. She said, "Turn it on. Two planes have crashed into the World Trade Center."

I all but ran to the TV and turned it on just in time to see the first tower collapse. Lee and I were on the phone for a couple more minutes, but we were both too shocked to carry on any kind of conversation.

I was glued to the television until Rick arrived about 1:30pm, exhausted from having been up all night. He had been sleeping as a passenger in the truck while they were on their way home, when he suddenly leaned forward and turned up the radio. It had been playing so softly neither Bob nor Rick had really been listening. And so they heard one of the first reports about the WTC tragedy. The interesting thing is that all of last week, Rick had been glued to CNN because he was expecting something earthshaking to happen... in fact, he had said it would be on the order of a massive earthquake. I guess these plane crashes qualify for that, don't they?

For the rest of the day, we watched ABC television (Rick's favorite news channel). At six pm or so, we went out to care for the 'pacas. I've been making a point of catching them each day using the techniques Marty McGee Bennett taught me when I was at her clinic over the Labor Day holiday, but I am still, as Rick says, too empathetic. I SO much don't want to terrify these shy and gentle creatures. I mixed up the antibiotic pills into the paste, and we gave it to Kimball. He refuses to swallow it, but lets it fall out of his mouth. He doesn't spit it out, though. I think he must be getting some of it, because we give him lots more than we find on the ground.

Wednesday and Thursday passed in a sort of blur. Except for a few minutes twice a day spent caring for our dogs, cats, fish, and alpacas, we sat in front of the television. We even had TV dinners. I'm pretty sure we don't know anyone who was in any of the three WTC buildings or the Pentagon or on any of the four planes, and that we don't even know anyone who knows someone who was in one of those situations. We do know many people in New York, though, and it was a relief to get email after email assuring us that our friends were NOT involved in the crashes, but that they were on their way to see what they could do to help at the scene.

On Thursday night, Dr. Baum called with the results from the necropsy on the cria: There is no obvious reason for death. Sarai is still hanging on, still getting antibiotics and uterine flushes. But now she's at least eating, and she's urinating and defecating, but she still has a great deal of uterine and vaginal pain, as you can imagine.

Friday night, Dr. Baum called again and asked me to call Dr. Hott and ask him to call her, since she hasn't been able to reach him, but I forgot to call until Saturday, and Dr. Hott's Saturday office hours were over by noon, before I called. Now I can't reach him until Monday. She also wanted me to give permission to take blood samples from both Sobata and Sarai to be sure there isn't a common bacterium or virus that's causing these problems. If there is, then the entire herd will have to be treated.

Almost Heaven will provide a re-breeding for both Sobata and Sarai, but I think we want to use their other herdsire, Solomon. Both females were bred to the same male, Katahdin, and it may be that there is something in the combination of those two lines that resulted in the dead cria. Katahdin has successfully bred other females at Almost Heaven, who have delivered delightful crias, Gabriel and Abigail. The fault cannot lie solely with him. Sobata has had several crias - two for Almost Heaven (Sarai and Elijah, both of whom are true black, like their mother). This stillborn was Sarai's first pregnancy. So the fault - if there is one - can't lie solely with her, either. It has to be the combination, if there is a genetic problem at all. Of course, since the ARI doesn't do any genetic marker testing, we have no way to know whether the problem is genetic or not.

It's strange, but for all this heartbreak, and even having our business plan set back a full year because we lost both crias this year, I'm glad we got into this business. There's something about an alpaca that no other animal can match - not even a dog. Dogs are great companions, and so are cats, but I can waste hours leaning against a fencepost watching my yearling males play in the field, and I can't with the other animals we own. Yes, it's hard work, keeping up with the weeds in the field, not knowing quite what to do with all the paca beans and old, dead hay (and our compost pile is over 4 feet high by now), finding out that it does take more than $3.00 a month to feed an alpaca (because the hay costs about $2.00 a bale and one alpaca will eat about two bales a month if it doesn't have good forage, which ours don't have; and because it costs $38.00 every other month to get the grain they need. In addition, there are alternate-monthly worming injections, with worming pellets offered in the other months; there are halters and lead ropes and training and scales and a trailer, and all kinds of things we didn't realize we'd need. If you're planning to start REAL small, start with at least two alpacas and $50,000.00 in liquid assets - money to be used to buy feed, medications, supplies, fencing, and those unexpected veterinarian bills. And keep in mind that if it cost $100,000 to do the same thing, I think it would be worth it.

Clearly, if your objective is to make a fortune, you'll need a lot more money to start with, because you'll need larger facilities and more animals; you may need staff and an in-house veterinarian. But if you are interested in the long haul, in producing fine fiber for American performance wear (for ski sweaters, for example), then alpacas are just the animals to do it with!

More later...

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