 DMAR has its first female cria of the year – DMAR Dominique born on Saturday, December 15th at 7:07 am. Dominique is medium fawn in color and weighed 16.8 lbs. She and mom, Kaitlyn, are doing fine.
It was early morning around 6 am when I noticed on our tv, yes we have cameras to the maternity ward hooked up to our bedroom tv for alpaca watching, that Kaitlyn got up to go to the bathroom. Pretty uneventful as she actually went. A few minutes later she was back at the dung pile again, but still uneventful as she again went to the bathroom. It was not more than 5 minutes later that Kaitlyn was at the dung pile for the third time. This time nothing was happening except her standing there in the position to go. Now she had my full attention.
After a few minutes Kaitlyn left the pile. Walked around and nibbled on some leftover hay from the night before. After a few minutes she was once again at the dung pile. Ok it was time for Tom and me to spring into action. Kaitlyn is not one to roll from side to side when in labor or to get up and then kush again. She gives no sign that she is in labor except for the fact that she continuously visits the dung pile.
When I got in the kitchen and viewed the monitor IÂ saw that Kaitlyn was now kushed. Great this buys me a little time to feed the dogs. I always like to make sure everyone is fed before birthing a new cria as this can take hours. Not so much the birthing of the cria, but the observation afterwards.
By 6:30 am Tom and I were outside. Kaitlyn did look quite uncomfortable. In less than five minutes we could see that she was beginning to push. I told Tom to feed all the other alpacas while I watched. Tom had them all eating in record timing. He likes to be a part of the birthing process, especially to help if needed. Lucky for us that Kaitlyn delivered with no problems.
Dominique had some issues finding mom’s udder, but with some guidance from Tom and me I believe she got the colostrum she needed. I hated that she was born on the coldest morning that we have had so far, but we got her warmed up quickly by blow drying her and sticking on a sweater and cria coat.
Dominique is Kaitlyn-Rose’s third cria. To date she has had DMAR Athena, multiple blue ribbon winner and reserve color champion, DMAR Diego, blue ribbon winner, and now DMAR Dominique. Already we can see the crimp in her fiber and we are sure she too will do well at the shows.
Yeah for the first girl of the birthing season! We have two more to go, but they are not due until February and March. We get a little break now. Â
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