one boy one girl

Fate had apparently decided I didn’t have enough on my plate yesterday. Molly delivered her cria in the morning. It was a text book delivery. Dot arrived just in time to see the cria hit the ground. She called me at work to give me the news and I called Laurel to let her know her herd had grown by one, a little brown girl.

Then Dot called me back to tell me Inara was now delivering. This was a surprise; Inara wasn’t due for another three weeks or more. After an hour Dot called me back to tell me that we had a head, but there was no further progress. Fearing a dystocia, I gave any pretense of getting anything accomplished and headed home, leaving a message for Linda (our vet) as I walked out the door.

Linda called me back just as I got to the barn. I confirmed the dystocia with her. Thank goodness for Linda, as she was a nice calm voice on the phone talking me through what I had to do. Alpacas, like other livestock, deliver their babies front feet first with the head and neck laying in between. Well our little guy had his legs back and twisted around each other. Once I located the legs, I had to untwist them and then attempt to bring them forward. The first leg actually came out fairly quickly, though it felt like I was in there twisting and pulling and pushing for days. The second leg took a bit longer. I remember, on the verge of panic, saying to Linda that I thought she had said the second leg was easier and her reply of “No, I said your half way there. Don’t get frustrated, you’re doing fine”. There is not a lot of room to work in there and I swear his leg was getting longer with every passing minute. Linda suggested trying to push him back in a bit to get some more room.
Seriously?
You do realize that Inara is doing her damndest to squeeze him out? And you want me to stick him back in there???
Ok, I’ll keep trying. A few minutes more and I had given up trying to straighten to leg and simply folded it nice and flat and eased him out.

Success!

The little guy was up and nursing within the hour, no worse for his untimely arrival. He looks like he’ll be a true black. Now we have to come up with some names. I don’t know, but all I can think of when I see our little guy is “early”.

So we managed to finish up baby watch in one fell swoop. I suppose it’s nice that I don’t have to worry about anybody delivering while I’m away at a show, but I still could have done with slightly less excitement.