Wobbly, Weeble Alpaca

We have moved - amidst storm, sleet, rain and even a smudge of snow!  I should now be waffling on about the move and the new house but that will have to wait as I have to tell you about a very traumatic event first.  I am afraid there is no photo yet as I have to do everything on the tablet and I don't know how to get photos on that.   Anyway . . .

It was the night of the big storm and we had just unloaded everything.  We secured everything as well as we could in the fields and anxiously waited for morning.  I went up to check and feed on my own and immediately saw a field shelter blown over and smashed on the track.  Not bad as the boys were up at the top grazing and no one was hurt.  Everything else seemed fine until I went behind the barn and looked up at the girls with cria.  I have had some horrid alpaca moments but this beats the lot.

We have some very heavy duty hay feeders too heavy for me to move on my own, usually.  Well, somehow one of them had tipped over - right on top of Cassie.  She was lying on her side with just the bottoms of her legs sticking out one side, full hay rack over her entire body and her head sticking out the other side eyes closed, froth all round her mouth.

Super human strength helped me move the rack off her and she opened her eyes.  I was sure everything must be broken but I had no phone signal and no one with me to help so I pushed her into a kush - amazingly she tucked her own legs in properly so they were not broken.  I felt her ribs and she didn't flinch but dribbled out lots of fluids.  Her neck was a real worry as the heavybar where the lid lifts had been across it and it looked dented and she didn't lift it.  There was no way I could lift her to get her on her feet so I dashed off to get Carl and thought she would be gone by the time I got back.  We returned in record time and to my amazement she had moved a few feet and her head was up - but her neck had a big bend in it - in fact it looked like a big question mark.  

To cut a long story short, she still has a very odd neck but the vet thinks it is muscular and should recover - she is having metacam to ease it.  Her cria is feeding, she is grazing and eating from the trough.  Her walking is still a bit wobbly and she looks very strange but, hopefully, she will be okay.


What a week it has been!