Hello fellow breeders :-) I need some input from those of you who might have experience with alpacas that shouldn't have survived but did and their future prospects. Let me explain:
One of my Suri gals had an extremely premature male on May 14, 2007 and the little guy weighed only 8 pounds at birth. Mom refused to let him nurse for about 3 days, which didn't help that fact that he was small and weak. To make a long story short, after the crisis was over (after bottle feedings every 2 hours, long nights, and a plasma transfusion, etc.) mom and baby settled into a normal routine. This is the only baby of mom's that actually lived - last year the baby was born more pre-mature than the last and didn't make it. This year's baby was carried to term but still died.
Everything has been normal with my boy ever since, except he has been extremely slow to grow. He has always had *screaming* luster, (like glass, have never quite seen anything like it since!) and normal sized testicles for his age. A little after a year he sprouted an incredibly dense topknot (like his father, who also had a late-developing top knot), after two years his density has almost tripled. Also, although he is classifed as light fawn, he has always been a comination of fascinating colors including black, mocha, red, almost pinkish grey, and fawn.
I would really like to breed him as his fleece quality is exceptional. And his testicles are the correct size for his age, no problem there; they are actually *larger* than some other "normal" boys his age. He started mounting fully grown dams at a few months old, and was going nuts when he got a dam to cush for him (i.e., orgling, etc.) However, he is just small, like, right now about 140 lbs; my other 10 month old light fawn junior herdsire is almost as big as him. He continues to grow, but oh so slowly. He is very gentle and sweet, and has had a really hard time in this world. But he really "shouldn't" be here, based on his low birth weight, difficult weaning in the winter, plus what I suspect as neglect at the last farm we was boarded at, etc. What a fighter he has been.
What I want to know is this - Is this type of slow growth process "normal" for such a small preemie? I am assuming he would have been bigger had he been carried to term and mom didn't have the problems she has. Does his size necessarily reflect something in his genetic pool, or is it just because of being born early?
I don't have a lot of experience with preemie Jr. Herdsires, only preemie girls, so any wisdom anyone can toss my way would be most appreciated!
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