Wednesday, August 5, 2009

A sad day...

Today is that day that we knew had to come sometime...

After nearly three years, we lost our first Alpaca.

Choco was only just two years old, an occasional member of the show team (second place ribbons in three shows) and only recently certified and DNA tested for stud work.



Monday he was fine, right as rain, playing in the boys' paddock with the others. Tuesday morning, he was on his own, couldn't get up and really lethargic. We called the vet out, he clearly had a heart problem and we moved him up to the house. Tuesday night, before I went to bed I sat with him for a while, he was very quiet but had his head up and seemed to be showing signs of recovery but sadly, he was gone by morning.

It had to happen sometime, but this was really unexpected, we've nursed a few animals back now that were touch and go for a while, but this was so sudden with no clue that there was a problem.

Unfortunately it's the reality of any type of livestock raising, but it's still pretty miserable....

6 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear that, Perry. Sometimes things just happen, and alpacas are good at hiding problems.

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  2. I'm so sorry, it is horrible when something like this happens, the not so nice side of livestock farming like you say.

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  3. Sorry to hear that guys, we're thinking of you, it can happen to any of us. Chins up eh!

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  4. Sorry to read your sad news about Choco, its really horrible to have to experience this kind of loss. We all get very attached to our alpacas......I know that you would have done all you could............Jayne

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  5. So so sorry about poor Choco - it is heartbreaking to lose an animal suddenly. We lost our best cria yet this year - he had an infection we did not pick up on.

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  6. I happened on your post and see that your show string did very well. We almost lost our first cria (she was born a month premature) when we had owned her mother less than two days. Had we lost her then it would have been heartbreaking. A sudden death is cruel and this one robbed you of your plans for his future as well. Our deepest sympathy.

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