The final day of worming goes without a hitch, however, I have ordered a proper worming syringe on the basis it will help me get a full dose down the two or three alpacass that really jump around when it comes to worming.

On the first day of worming we weighed all the animals and condition scored them. This was when we noticed a cria that had lost weight in the last two weeks. Our initial reaction was to look to the mother. Did she have mastitis or some other condition affecting her milk production? Having checked everything we could think of in the mother and the cria we sat down with a cup of tea. -always a great way to solve an alpaca mystery.
We checked the weights from last month and knew the cria had been gaining almost 1 lb per day some days.
So at that time clearly the mum was making plenty of milk and the cria was drinking plenty of milk. We also knew from the Igg level in the crias blood that he had probably taken a good intake of colostrum from mum.

As Sherlock Holmes would say to Dr Watson "Once you have eliminated all the possibilities bar one, then you have the answer, however improbable it may be". So who was stealing the milk?

The guilty party was last years cria, Moonriver...who had been weaned months before. But was now waiting for her little brother to start feeding then nudge him out of the way.
A clear case of "snitching " as Norm Evans calls it, and hopefully a problem easily solved..so now mum and cria are together and I expect the cria's weight to recover fully within a month or so.



By Adrian Stewart