HISTORY 23

October 3, 2003

Here we go again.

Rick left on Wednesday (October 1) to go down to North Carolina to help his brother with their father. Apparently their father is so despondent over the loss of his wife last June that he tried to kill himself. When he confessed to this on Tuesday morning, Rick's brother immediately took their father to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation, and on Thursday (yesterday) they got the results. Their father needs to be placed in an extended care facility. So Rick will stay in North Carolina until he and his brother can find a suitable facility for their father, and probably stay there to care for him while Rick's brother and sister-in-law have to work. At least until they can actually move him into the facility.

The people who have Clovelly, Kirby, and Sarai called me this morning to tell me that Kirby strangled in their power fence last night. They have an electric mesh fence along the far perimeter of their farm, designed to really discourage predators. Apparently, during Hurricane Isabel, power was disrupted, and they didn't know about it. Their own animals had long since learned to stay away from the fence, but Kirby, being the curious soul that he was, went adventuring to the far corners of the field and tried to go beyond.

They've never had a cria strangle in the fence before, and they are terribly upset. They're going to give us Clovelly's yearling sister, Camilla, in recompense, and that will ease the financial hardship a good deal, but it doesn't really help the hollow feeling I have inside about it. Kirby was a beautiful, beautiful animal, and he was just learning to let us touch him. He would have been 4 months old on October 6.

I received an email this morning from someone who had read these histories, and she mentioned that I never did say what was wrong with Kirby when he was born or what the outcome was with his left leg. With respect to the diarrhea, I've since learned on the Alpacasite Email Forum that green diarrhea is pretty common among newborn crias, and it's nothing to worry about unless it persists over a week or so. We didn't give Kirby that much time, but jumped on it, and it cleared up in a few days and we felt we had "fixed" whatever was wrong. But it turns out nothing was wrong after all! With respect to his leg and foot, the vet couldn't find anything at all wrong with it. After a week or two of holding it up in the air, he began to tentatively step down on it, and by the end of a month, he was running around and pronking like all crias do. All better!

We've been in this business only 28 months, and we've lost four animals already. That's an average of one every seven months. (The first two crias were lost while our females were still at their breeder's farm after we bought their mothers, but before we took possession of them), Sobata died here, and now Kirby has died at the farm where his mother is being bred. Only one of the deaths occurred on our farm - and Sobata had contracted the pneumonia long before we got her, if her cough was any signifier. There is nothing we could have done about any of the deaths, except possibly Sobata's. But it sure feels like we must be doing SOMETHING wrong! No one else that I know of has had our kind of "luck.")

This is only the third of the month, and already we've had two tragedies. Let's hope and pray that we've seen the last of them for this month!

We may have negotiated a "deal" regarding Sarai. The Wilmses have a friend who is looking for a female companion animal, and Sarai would serve that purpose admirably, since she can't be bred again. We offered to trade Sarai to the Wilmses for a couple of breedings, and then they could sell Sarai to their friends for whatever they choose to sell her for. Their friend is coming to their farm this weekend to help with herd health, so she'll get to meet Sarai then. If she decides she wants Sarai, then the Wilmses will trade with us, but if she decides she doesn't, then the Wilmses won't trade with us, because they don't need a female companion animal.

October 27, 2003

We brought Clovelly, Camella (not Camilla, as I had thought) and Sarai home yesterday. Before we left Brookmere's driveway, Rick got out of the truck to check to see that the ball was properly attached to the hitch. It was, but when he looked in on the alpacas, both Clovelly and Camella were covered with spit, and Sarai's lower lip was hanging open. Poor girls!

The alpacas in their trailer provide quite a conversation piece at gas stations. We stopped to get gas and some lady came over and looked at them and asked the inevitable questions: "Are they llamas?" and "What do you do with them?" Rick got so involved in the conversation he forgot to click the mechanism on the pump handle that actually dispenses the gas, and we drove away without buying any, although the machine had our credit card info and the next driver will probably get a free tank of gas out of it.

At Brookmere, Sarai has been a bully, apparently, because she wants to be bred and can't be. So she tries to mount the other girls, and they won't have it, and she gets mad and starts spitting. We thought perhaps she'd be happier if she were separated from the girls, so we tried that last night and today, but it rained really hard and none of the alpacas would go into either the barn or the shed, so they are all soaked to the skin and Clovelly is shivering. Not good. And Sarai found her way through a break in the fence to get into the goat pasture. Guess she really wanted company!

So we tried putting all the girls together and getting them into the barn, but they wouldn't go inside at all. It's really cold out tonight (33 degrees) and I'm afraid the alpacas and the guineas will get pneumonia or something dreadful like that.

We'll try again in the morning when we bring out their morning feeding. They'll usually go into the barn for that!

December 2, 2003

I subscribe to a forum on guinea fowl, and at the recommendation of the other guinea owners, I wanted a 100-watt light bulb put up in the alpaca's 3-sided shelter to help warm an area for the guinea fowl. They don't seem to me to be as protected against extreme weather conditions the way the alpacas and goats seem to be.

So at my insistence, Rick put a nightlight in the 3-sided shelter where the alpacas and guinea fowl spend the night. We noticed that the alpacas wouldn't sleep in the shelter - or even near it. For the first time, they chose to sleep close to the house, but the guineas seemed to love the nightlight, and they all slept in the shelter. During the night, we heard the guineas sounding the alarm, but when we went out, we could see nothing, so when they alarmed again a few minutes later, we didn't go out.

This morning, Rick went outside and couldn't find one of the guineas. After a bit of a search, he found the missing guinea in the shelter - missing his head. We took the light out of the shelter. The guineas will just have to be cold if they won't hunker down in the hay beside the alpacas.

This evening, Rick started to take the dogs for a walk. He didn't have Greta on a leash, saying she hasn't shown any interest in them in weeks. As soon as she was out the door, she headed straight for the guineas - and got one before he could catch her. It took all we could do to keep from beating her about the head and shoulders to make her let go, and when she finally did, the guinea was dead.

In a single day, our little flock of four guineas was cut in half. However, to look on the bright side of things, the remaining guineas are one male and one female. Perhaps we'll have keets next summer, and start our flock anew. Assuming these two live through the winter!

More later...

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