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

Pinocchio got some action for the first time today. We had tried last weekend, but jasmine was not yet receptive. This morning we tried him with Topsy and Jasmine. We did run into one problem though.

When the testosterone flooded into Pinocchio’s little brain, he started chest-butting Topsy and trying to bite her legs. It took some time for him to figure out that there was another set of behaviours driven by testosterone. Eventually the light bulb came on, and he was trying to mate Jasmine. It helped heaps she was already sitting so he did not have to chase her down.

He is going to have to get better about the orgling, as right now it sounds like a sad, infrequent hiccupping noise. He had a few minutes of “success” with Jasmine. The next few days he will have plenty of other opportunities to practice, as Topsy, Cindy, and Saffron are now waiting in queue.

Saffron, who dropped the her cria early back before Christmas developed the same problem she had last year- her udder was so over-full that it was sore and she would not let her cria nurse. (note- we have never seen another lpaca with an udder that huge. Anyone want to breed a line of milking-alpaca?) This time we were ready for it. The cria got plenty of bottle-fed colostrums the first day, and by the next day (when we had confirmed she was not letting him drink) the milking began. As it is a 2-person operation, we could only milk before and after work. We were lucky that the Christmas holiday came later in the week, as milking lots helped take the pressure off, and she started letting the little bub (Ridill) feed. Then it was a few more days of milking maybe once or twice a day.

For comparison, here is the udder of one of our other lactating females, Cindy:

Now things seem to have sorted themselves out. Ridill is feeding and growing, and we have not had to milk Saffron for a few days.

I expect this will be a regular feature for all her cria. At least we know what we are getting into in future years.