Hi Maegan and others,
Thank you for the advice on early weaning. After reading more and reevaluating Mom and her test results, we have decided to keep baby with her for a minimum of two more months.
Her blood work looked good, other than a little low on calcium- she is not anemic and her fecal was clean as a whistle. We weighed her last Monday and she weighed 115 pounds and baby was 35. One week later, Mom weighs 120.8 and baby is 38.4, SO, we know she is gaining and we know she is being fed well…….I also put a coat on mom because she has very little fleece and I don't want her spending too many groceries on keeping warm. Baby is a fluffy butter.
I think keeping them together will also help keep the stress level down and they will be with five other females- one big happy sleepover!
The vet said her calcium will come up with the alfalfa and to give her a B-complex injection once a month. We'll do a blood check in another month. I am truly hoping to get her up to her normal weight and happy and healthy. She was bred by the seller before shipping to us and we will have that checked out, although I am not holding my breath that she'll hold onto that pregnancy.
The vet isn't concerned about the cria having MH- well, to say she is not concerned isn't quite correct, but she thinks it is a low priority for us at this time. The baby is healthy and gaining and doing well. Emphasis is being put on mom at this time. Even if baby tests positive, there is not a whole lot we can do about it. We have to be very alert regarding their body weight and overall health and we know that weight loss and lethargy are symptoms of MH and to stay on top of that. Also, keeping them as parasite free as we can will help keep them healthy.
Thanks again. Oh, one more thing. The suggestion about setting up a creep for baby…………I wasn't concerned about baby getting enough. She eats like a little pig every time we feed mom……..my concern was letting mom eat enough, often enough without the others eating her grain. We are setting up a catch pen to feed mom to keep the others from getting her "extras". My other females are all healthy and don't need extra groceries at this time. (much to their chagrin) ;-)
Everyone's posts were helpful. Thank you, all.
Laura Roberts
R Half Pint Farm
Spotsylvania, VA
From: AlpacaTalk@yahoogroups.com [mailto:AlpacaTalk@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of cedargrovealpacas@comcast.net
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2009 2:48 AM
To: AlpacaTalk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [AlpacaTalk] Weaning crias..........exceptions to the rules
Hi Laura;
I would be careful about weaning your cria too early. We had a male cria weaned by the farm we had brought him from. The problem was he was around 40 pounds at almost 4 months. This sounded good to the farm doing the weaning, but was not acceptable to us. The outcome was a small male because he was not allowed to meet his 6 month requirement which robbed him of his stuff he needed from mom. We always let our girls wean the babes since they have never failed us. They are normally wened by about 8 months. We were lucky enough to have girls who can and will do this.
When it comes to her weight, make sure she is being given far more feed on a daily basis. Also, maybe throwing in some alfalfa to help her with quick and healthy weight gain. According to Evans in his origional guide, (page 148) it says that if fed free choice, good alfalfa will put on about 1/3 pound pound per day or 2 pounds a week. All of our moms and babies are in incredible shape and moms are keeping good body scores while feeding babies and incubating next year's. One of our females has so much milk, she is nursing her cria from this year plus another cria who's mom died 10 days after his birth due to post-partum complications and age (she was a 15 year old chilean imported girl). Our males also look very good so we are very impressed with our feeding regimen of free feed orchard and alfalfa 3-4 times a week. Over feeding alfalfa will make them fat and blow them out, not to mention may cause liver issues if fed excessively so one needs to be careful. But feeding it to under weight animals in proportion to good orchard should do just fine.
Hope this helps....
Maegan Blessing
Cedar Grove Alpacas
----- Original Message -----
From: "Laura A. Roberts" <laura0554@hughes.net>
To: AlpacaTalk@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2009 6:22:52 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: [AlpacaTalk] Weaning crias..........exceptions to the rules
We have an old gal we just bought, sight unseen, with her 3 ½ mo old cria. Mom is very thin and has been diagnosed with MH. After lots of tests, Biomycin shots, fecals and worming……..Mom is gaining. She gained 6 pounds this week! Baby gained 3 ½ and now weighs 38 pounds. Our vet advised us to wean baby at 4 months. She is eating like a little pig….and is healthy and we know mom needs to keep all those groceries she has been giving to baby.
So, with that in mind, we are doing a little reorganizing and mom is going into the "Big girls" pasture with two other adult females that are bred and little baby is going into the "little girls" pasture with three yearlings. One of those yearlings is the daughter to one of the "big girls" and we were going to separate them since she is still nursing, also. I don't think she is getting much, but she still tries. We plan to do it all at one time when two of our "big girls" come home from their "rendezvous resort". (Herdsire's farm) These pastures are side by side and hopefully the transition won't be too stressful for either. I do have a way to move them where they can't see each other but I am hoping this way will work.
This cria weighed 14 pounds at birth and weighs 38 pounds at 4 months. Does this seem like a reasonable weight and satisfactory weight gain. She will be four months old this Wednesday.
Laura Roberts
R Half Pint Farm
Spotsylvania, VA
From: AlpacaTalk@yahoogroups.com [mailto:AlpacaTalk@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of shirley
Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2009 9:31 PM
To: AlpacaTalk@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [AlpacaTalk] RE: female acting funny
I agree the longer the better. But 6 months is a little to short IMHO unless the cria is a male. Females can and will nurse a little longer. In my situation we thought the female cria had stopped nursing but had started again. This is the first time we have let it go that long and wouldn't have if we had realized what was going on. I think 9 months is a good amount of time to stop crias from nursing. We wean the male crias at 6 months as they are mounting the open females and also the female crias. This usually works for us.......
Alpacas of Gemini Farm
Basking Ridge, NJ 07920
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