Neonatal Care Part I: Supplies

Now that's a fresh baby!

The birth of an alpaca cria is a time of emotional extremes. Anticipation reaches frenzied heights until the actual signs of labor begin. Then anxiety replaces all other emotions. If all goes well, that too is replaced quickly by joy. Let’s assume that is the case and your new alpaca baby is on the ground. Mom has a look of intense relief on her face that is probably mirrored on yours. Everything has gone well so far.

There are a plethora of articles , both online and in print, on neonatal care for the first 24 hours. Then there are other articles that deal specifically with discovery of defects. I thought I would try to roll them all together: routine neonatal care plus diagnosis of health and birth defect issues that I’ve either encountered or heard about.

First off, preparing for post-delivery care. You should have a cria kit or all your cria supplies handy located handy for wherever the birth may take place. These include (supplies for the actual delivery are excluded):

Thermometer
KY Jelly
Paper Towels
Bath Towels
Blow Dryer
Umbilical clamp
Iodine or Chlorhexidine (Nolvasan)
Small container e.g. film canister
Goat’s Milk
Colostrum or substitute
Feeding bottle and nipple
Infant Suction bulb
Feeding tube
Children’s Fleet Enema bottle
Disposable Gloves

Some breeders also keep an oxygen tank on hand. Yes, a small tank!

In cold weather:
Heat Lamp, hot water bottles or something to keep the cria warm
Cria Coat

Next up: Neonatal Care Part II: The First Four Hours

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Exhaustion Redux

Newborn Thisbe

Before I had alpacas, I thought I knew tired. I thought I knew fatigue and even exhaustion. Tired was a long day at work followed by the tedium of making dinner , then a couple of hours of recuperation before you went to bed. Fatigue was a whole week of long days or maybe a weekend hike. Exhaustion was a long day followed by a late night on a deadline-driven multi week project that had me working weekends while still trying to get all my regular household errands done – groceries, housecleaning, paying the bills.

Now I know that I didn’t know squat about exhaustion.

Until it was a matter of life or death, I don’t think I knew how elastic the limits of exhaustion could be. And that comes to what I have been occupied with the past few days. Thursday morning, my dam, Aria, who was 3 1/2 weeks past due, was having contractions when I opened the barn at 6 a.m. It was an unusually painful, wracking labor that kept her kushed or on her side, making moaning sounds when it was at its worst. I called the vet in fears that the baby might be mispositioned. At 9:30 a.m., the vet arrived and discovered the head under one leg, making delivery impossible. The position was corrected and we waited. Still nothing, with Aria continuing to evidence great pain during contractions. Although the feet were out and the nose poised to eject, the vulva was simply not expanding wide enough to allow passage of the head. We guessed the baby was large. By this time, the water had broken and delivery had to occur. With me pulling on the legs , the vet pulled the opening wide enough to extract the head.  After that, the baby- a white girl stained profusely with blood from the umbilical cord- came out easily. It was now 11:15 a.m.

As any alpaca breeder knows, this is just the beginning after an extraction like that.  The baby was exhausted and weak, and still had not stood up by mid afternoon. One ounce of goats milk was bottle fed to her at 2:30 p.m. to keep her going until she stood up and nursed. Aria was also milked for 10 cc of colostrum.  Still no activity from the baby. A temperature reading then showed her temp to be a low 94 degrees. She was hypothermic. After applying a blow dryer for a good half hour, her temperature rose to 98.6 and she started to show some alertness. Aria, on the other hand, was still in pain and received Banamine directly after delivery and then the start of a course of antibiotics. However, she had still not passed her placenta by 4 p.m.  Both mom and cria now demanded attention. For Aria, a start of Oxytocin shots every 2 hours to encourage uterine contractions. For the baby, another ounce of goats milk at 4:30 p.m and an attempt to get her nursing by propping her up under mom. She also received an enema with no results. At 5:30 p.m, another attempt and the baby had her first solid nurse. It was hoped that this would also stimulate contractions in Aria to eject the placenta. Aria had started to expel the amniotic fluid in the placenta but not the sac itself. The baby was still not active so another enema was given. Still no results. At this point, the vet recommended oxtyocin shots for Aria through the night and supplementing the cria every 4 hours with goats milk. This can be hard news to hear after a stressful day and at this point, you just accept it and do it. 8 p.m, 10 p.m, 12 a.m. , 2:30 a.m, 4:30 a.m., 7 a.m. – the routine was repeated. Get up, prepare a shot of oxytocin, inject Aria, get the baby on her feet, position her to nurse. Every other time, heat up some goats milk and give to the baby.

By 8 a.m. the next day, Aria still had not passed her placenta but the baby had gained over half a pound.  I think it was in the moment I saw the cria’s weight that I thought “it was worth it”. My second thought? I’m not feeling that bad – I’m still functioning ok! Which was great, because I had to haul the mom and baby to the vet’s to have the placenta extracted and an IgG taken on the cria. But despite what could have been, the best possible outcome for a retained placenta was what happened. The vet extracted it manually and it seemed in one piece with both horns. A quick lavage with saline, a syringeful of genomicin, and Aria was declared good to go. And the baby’s IgG came back at 1500 mg!

The cria was still noticeably inactive and I had not seen her pass meconium or even urinate so that evening I gave her a 3rd enema. This time , a large piece of hard fecal matter was ejected and she was immediately active and more alert, acting like a normal healthy cria. I did still get up once during the night Friday to get the baby up and nursing but I think now, she is good to go. I’ll be watching closely for the next few days before I stop monitoring. But for tonight, I am looking forward to catching up on some sleep, though I still plan to get up once to check in on the little one.

I can only marvel at those breeders who have to raise orphaned crias. That’s a test of stamina that I hope never to have to pass. My small two days and nights of anxiety were more than enough to push me to an excessive amount of Excedrin and chocolate.

And as with all challenging experiences, I like to think about the lessons learned from the entire event:

1. Have more than one vet but choose one as the primary

2. Never underestimate the power of a good enema

3. Never question that you can do what needs to be done, just do it

4. Have a kit supplied for the worst possible scenario and hope for the best

5. Have your trailer hooked up and ready to go at the first sign of something wrong

6. Have a support group of breeders

7. Take care of yourself so you can take care of your animals

So now I feel we are pretty much out of the woods. I don’t name a cria until I’m sure. But I’ve gone ahead and given this one her name – an appropriate one. That’s for another post.

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The Five Phases of Cria Watch

I am on cria watch. The expectant dam is a first time mom named Aria. I purchased Aria when she was just three months old. Now, over two years later, she is finally due with her first baby. Although the years have flown by, they feel now in memory like an eternity. During cria watch, time stretches out to agonizing slowness.

I think each time I go through this for first timers, especially for the highly anticipated births, there is a set emotional pattern that occurs that takes me from emotional highs to tragic lows. I always think about Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s Five Phases of Grieving because the end phase is the same though applied to the opposite extremes of the life cycle. Here we are talking about awaiting a new life versus mourning the end of one.

You have to view the span of emotions with some humor.  To me, cria watch is the ultimate lesson that teaches us how our wills are nothing in the face of one lazy, fat cow of a dam. When it comes, it comes.

1. Anticipation

The due date is arriving. In my mind, I envision the cria in reality just as I’ve imagined it for the past eleven months. Longer even, because that image first formed in my mind when I decided on the breeding. I’ve had almost a year to refine the details and sharpen the picture, even think of names. I call the baby by name when I see it move, just to see how it feels.  I scan the mom for any sign of discomfort. Are you humming? Did the baby turn? I try to see if she is bagging with milk. This goes on for days. I clear my calendar so I can be at home until late afternoon every day.

2. Bargaining

The due date has come and past. The dam still shows no signs of discomfort. I can see the baby moving but then it settles again. She is chewing her cud like she doesn’t have a care in the world.  I tell her that when she has the baby, I’ll let her out into pasture again, where lusciously tender blades await her. She’ll get as much alfalfa as she wants to fuel her milk production. I start to contemplate the possibility that the baby may not be as I wished – if it’s a boy vs a girl. If it’s white vs. a fawn. Considering that, I start to juggle what the other expectant dams should have to compensate. As if I can rebalance the scales before they’ve even been tipped.

3. Denial

She is over a week due. I can’t believe it.  Was the breeding date accurate? Am I sure she is pregnant? If she isn’t, she has a large tumor attached to her belly and is grossly obese.  My mind flies back to if I remembered a time when she was uncomfortable from the baby turning. How long ago was that? The baby should be here.

4. Anger

I am way tired of being trapped in this house every morning and running up there every hour or so only to have my hopes dashed.  She is bagged but still no baby. I don’t believe it! Why won’t she just pop the dang thing out? I want to just yank it out or pop out from behind hay feeders to scare her into labor. Drop the baby, drop the baby! I scream at her.  My patience is at an end and I’m raging. Raging over the loss of something that I have yet to have.

5. Acceptance

It’s now two weeks past the due date. I am worn out from ranting.  I mosey up to the barn every couple of hours without expectation. I’ll be ready when it comes. I’ll try to be here. I hope only that the baby will be healthy and the delivery easy.  Maybe I’ll run some errands while I have a few free hours. What are the odds the baby will arrive while I am gone? I’ll be back in time, no big deal.

When it comes, it comes.

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