Newborn Care
Your job is to watch. It will seem like a long time but soon you will see your new cria take his/her first breath. Your new baby will attempt to raise its head. This will be wobbly at first. If your female alpacas are not nudging and licking the newborn to life you may need to assist. Stimulate the baby by rubbing him/her all over aggressively with a towel. Ask yourself, is the baby warm? A cria that is limp and not responsive right at birth may be cold and need warming. Use dry towels and an electric blanket if necessary. Your new cria will then move to a "kush" position. This is where he/she is upright with belly on the ground and legs tucked under. Your baby will sit like this while mom and other females lick him/her clean. This is a good time to greet your new arrival. Mom will let you come in the pasture or pen and work with her cria. However, do not attempt to remove the baby from her sight. This will make mom nervous and she will become aggressive and may spit at you. Newborn care includes weighing your new arrival. Bring your scale with you. If you do not have an animal sling scale, a simple bathroom scale will work. Simply weigh yourself, then pick up your new cria and weigh again. The difference in the 2 weights is your babys' weight. Your new cria should weigh between 10 and 20 pounds. Document the weight, sex and color of your new cria as well as date and time of birth. Examine him/her for problems with conformity and any cuts/injuries. The umbilical cord should be drying. There should be no bleeding or oozing of fluid at the base. Within 1 hour your new cria should be attempting to stand and walk. They will be unsteady at first but will be moving quite well in a very short amount of time. Your newborn should be attempting to nurse from mom within 2 hours of delivery. Other females will gently scoot her away if she attempts nursing on the wrong female. Leaving you new cria with too many moms may cause a serious delay in her finding the milk supply. It is best to move mom and her new baby to a seperate pen or place where they can be alone and bond. Newborn care also involves monitoring him/her carefully for the first 4 to 6 hours. You should see your newborn attempt to nurse frequently watching to see that mom is allowing her to nurse. He/she needs to do this often so moms' milk will come in. Good monitoring of your cria is essential over the next 2 weeks. You need to monitor frequency of nursing, voiding and stooling. Also watch his/her gait for problems. Monitor activity. Your baby should become increasingly active. Reweigh your cria if you suspect he/she is not nursing enough or getting enough nutrition. You need to be concerned if you new infant is not active or appears sluggish. Artificial milk may be obtained from online sources. In an emergency I have used calf milk replacer that I had on hand until I could get milk from the mother or another nursing mother to give to the cria. You may want to milk your female to see if there is milk there and that her supply is plentiful. We had a cria that was pretty lethargic at 2 days old. I quickly syringe fed her some calf replacer I had mixed up. I was then curious as to what moms' milk supply was like as I had witnessed this cria attempting to nurse quite frequently. The calf replacer had revived the cria but for how long? With assist I caught and haltered the new mom. Upon exam I found that her teats were extremely full, so full that the nipple would not stand out for the cria to latch on. She was engorged. I grabbed my milking syringe and started pulling off milk from each teat. The new cria smelled the milk and came running. She was pushing me aside to nurse as I released milk from each teat. After that she never had any problems nursing. To milk your female you will need to halter her and have someone else hold her still. It is very difficult to milk a female alpaca by yourself. Take a 60 ml plastic syringe. This can be obtained from a veterinarian or at most farm supply stores. Pull the plunger out of the syringe and cut the nipple off. Put the plunger back in opposite of the way you took it out. Smear vaseline or bag balm on the flanged edge and place the flange over one of the females teats. Gently but firmly pull back on the plunger. Milk should flow into the syringe. Draw up the milk into a smaller 5 or 10 ml syringe. Slowly drip the milk into the crias' mouth. You can milk another female that has a cria to give the milk to another cria if a mom is not able to produce enough milk. Be careful you do not take too much milk from the surrogate mom as she still needs plenty of milk for her own cria. Most female alpacas will wean their cria slowly by themselves begining at 3 months of age. By 6 months they should be totally done with nursing. I typically leave cria with their moms until 10 months of age before I remove the males. You may need to take mom and baby to your Veterinarian if you suspect a problem. Some Vets do make house calls. Be sure to take the placenta with you. Once your cria is 4 months old he/she is considered "viable". We register our alpacas between 6 months and 1 year of age. Always check with your Veterinarian regarding any concerns and/or imminizations. Immunizations are not necessary until your cria is no longer nursing. He/she has been protected through moms milk. The Ideal Alpaca , Problems With Conformity , Fleece Color , Breeding , Delivery of Cria , Alpaca Cria , |
Newborn care of your cria is best left to mom and other females in your herd. Your alpacas should revive your new cria within a short period of time. This is done by gently nudging and licking the infant.