s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

So, today we milked Cindy. The first milk produced is the colustrum, and it is full of extra goodies for a newborn. The gut lining of a newborn can only absorb most of the extra godness (particularly the antibodies) for the first 12 hours (plus or minus), and it is vital to get colustrum into the baby. Sometimes a new mum doesn’t produce enough milk in the first few hours, especially if it was a difficult/assisted birth. We have freeze dried cow colustrum on hand, but it is not ideal.

Now we have about 75 ml of alpaca colustrum in the freezer, where it will keep for a few years. If we need it, it’s there. What you call making the best of a bad situation and all that. Thankfully Cindy was extremely accomodating while I used a modified 10 ml syringe to milk her. Probably the hormones, telling her to stand still and let the cria drink.

She is still looking for her lost cria. Very sad.

We also gave her a shot of long-acting antibiotics, and hopefully everything will be okay. Here’s hoping this is our only birth-trauma of the season.