Cria Watch

Waiting for these babies to be born is exciting and scary all at once. It's exciting to see them when they are born - is it a boy or girl? what color? And the majority of the time the delivery goes smoothly, they do it all on their own. But, there is always anxiety about the possible problems. It likely doesn't help that J is a nurse and tends to ponder more problems than the average person would even think of.

Victoria is on day 340 of her pregnancy. According to many alpaca experts, alpaca gestation is until day 335 to whenever the baby comes (over a year). So, as far as the books are concerned, she's already full term. Victoria has had four cria, born on: day 355, day 347, day 354 and day 343. So, it would fit right into her normal for her to have that cria this week.

Victoria is quite pregnant too. Look at how rounded her belly is, and how her sides hang out:






I've been joking for months now that Victoria is going to have twins. I've had people ask if alpacas ever have twins and the answer to that is it is very rare. In fact, it used to be if they had twins they wouldn't make it to term, or if they did make it to term, they would not survive. However, in recent years, there have been several sets of twins that have survived, and even thrived. I only joke about this with Victoria because she looks so very pregnant. But the truth is that she is a smaller alpaca, with limited space in her abdomen. For comparison, Victoria usually weighs around 130 pounds, a smaller size alpaca, when the average is 160 (and for a big comparison, the biggest on our farm is 250 pounds).

I will be sure to update when she has this cria.