Monday, June 14, 2010

39 pounds!

At just three weeks old, Copper weighs in at 39 pounds! I haven't yet compared this to his siblings, but I do know this is huge. He was born at around 21 pounds, so this means he's gained 18 pounds in 21 days, that's almost a pound a day. The goal is 1/2 to 1 pound a day, so Copper is at the top end of that. Sancha must have some really incredible milk. For weaning, many farms use 6 months old and 60 pounds as the time to wean. Copper will have no problem getting to 60 pounds by 6 months old.

Here's Copper:



And here is Copper with his mom, Sancha:



As you can see, he does not look like his mom. He actually looks a lot like his sire (dad). I'll get a picture of him later to show the resemblance.

You might notice something on him. It's a hernia belt:



Sometimes cria have an umbilical hernia. This belt has a hard firm part that goes over the hernia, and helps push it back into their abdominal cavity. Both Tehya and Shelby had umbilical hernia, and we found the hernia belt worked like a charm. Unfortunately, Copper is so big, the belt hardly fits him. I hope it fixes fast or he slows down in growing.

3 comments:

Debbie, Barnacre Alpacas said...

One of my cria, Lucia, has put on just over 17lbs in 21 days too, she was 17.5lbs born!

Mother Robinson said...

Wow....what a chunker! He is very cute! I thought our little girl Happy was huge at 34 lbs at 4 weeks old! Our little bottle baby Alchemy is only 24.5 lbs at 4 weeks old....Happy looks huge next to him.

oak haven alpacas said...

Wow Debbie, that's doubling her weight in only 3 weeks!

Jillian, it's no wonder, given how big Sancha and Apollo are. Sancha is our biggest female (190 pounds give or take), and Apollo our biggest male (well over 200 pounds). Your Happy, has a smaller mom to begin with. 34 pounds for her is huge.

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