Seriously Mum, How Many Cats?

by Alan Parks

  Chapter 29

  Bottle Baby

  We had always thought that this time we may need to help Lily feed her baby, as one of the problems with the previous two cria we had lost seemed to be to do with feeding. So while we retreated to let them bond, hoping that they would sort it out amongst themselves, I did a bit of research about bottle feeding.

  The articles that I found suggested that babies need to be fed between 10-15% of their body weight per day for them to grow. We could use milk replacers, goat’s milk or whole cow’s milk. Many people on alpaca forums and Facebook pages swore by using whole cow’s milk.

  A couple of hours later, there was still no sign of the cria taking any milk from Lily. Although he was persistent and seemed to be finding the right area now, we just had the feeling he was getting very little, if any, milk out. So we continued with a couple more bottles of powdered colostrum, and first thing in the morning I would pay Manuel a visit and also get some milk from the supermarket in case we needed it.

  We checked and checked on the new arrival, and he seemed to doing well. We decided to go to bed about midnight, and we’d check on them at first light. I don’t know how much sleep either of us got that night, we were a mixture of nerves and excitement. On one hand we were so pleased that this baby had arrived full term and was strong, but in the backs of our minds we were both worried. Was Lily going to feed him? Would he still be OK the following morning? We just didn’t know.

  Both Lorna and I were awake at least an hour before it started to get light. We decided to wait as we didn’t want to startle the alpacas and upset them.

  As soon as the light arrived we got dressed and went to check. We looked through the window of our courtyard to see Little Fella up, underneath Lily, trying to feed.

  “Well, he’s alive,” I said to Lorna. “Let’s go and sit and watch for a while.”

  So we went out to see whether or not he was now feeding from Lily as he should be. As we sat and watched, he was a picture of frustration. The milk was there in front of him and he seemed to know how to get it, but he didn’t actually seem to be able to suckle very much, if at all. We weren’t seeing the tell-tale milk moustache.

  “Why don’t we give him another bottle? If he’s been feeding from Lily, he probably won’t drink it, but if he hasn’t, he’ll be hungry.”

  So we made him up a new bottle and as soon as we put it to his mouth he was suckling. He guzzled down the 150ml in no time.

  “I’m going to pop to the vets.” I said. “I’ll talk to him about the lack of colostrum and if we should be bottle feeding.”

  As I drove into Montoro, my heart was pounding. Was he going to be OK? What about Lily? How would she cope if this one didn’t make it? I tried to stop thinking the worst. Little Fella was strong and we would do everything we could to make sure he made it.

  When I arrived at Manuel’s, as usual it was quiet in the surgery.

  “Is everything OK?” he asked.

  “Lily’s had her baby,” I said.

  Manuel’s eyes lit up. The alpacas seem to bring something out in him and his face cannot hide his delight.

  “But there is a problem,” I continued. “He isn’t feeding from her, so we have been giving powdered colostrum.”

  Manuel was nodding as I spoke.

  “We think he may have to be bottle fed, but because he hasn’t had colostrum from Lily we were wondering about antibiotics. Maybe he should have some for a few days? Also, he hasn’t been to the toilet yet. We might need to give him an enema.”

  “OK. Yes we can give him some antibiotics. We can also give him a laxative, mineral oil and liquid paraffin which will be gentler than an enema.”

  Over the next 24 hours we continued feeding him by bottle, although he was still persisting in going underneath Lily. We also gave him antibiotics and started him on the laxatives.

  We kept him inside during the day, as unfortunately his birth coincided with the hottest two weeks we had this year. So from around 11am to 8pm we kept the girls and Little Fella in the stable out of the relentless sun.

  By the second evening we still hadn’t seen him go to the toilet, although he was urinating frequently. I had done loads of reading on the Internet and one of the main things to check for is the passing of the meconium, which is the first poo. We hadn’t seen this, so we decided to give him an enema.

  We found a sterile, rubber tube that was perfect for the job, and we used fairy liquid and warm water. The effect was almost immediate. He moved himself into position and there was a gush as the water erupted backwards out of him, followed by some sticky, orangey-brown concoction. That was what we were looking for. Both Lorna and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Over the next few minutes, he pooed a bit more, even producing what looked to us like miniature versions of adult alpaca poo. That had to be a good sign. We slept a little easier that night.

  The following day the baby was still eating well, but the poo problem returned. We had to repeat the enemas morning and night, always with a positive result and a more comfortable cria afterwards. On the second full day, he was noticeably in more discomfort and when we got hold of him to give him his antibiotics, he was crying in pain.

  We called Manuel and he came out to see him. Again we gave him an enema with Manuel in attendance, which clarified that we were doing things correctly. The pain in his stomach was from his constipation. We just had to hope that he would sort himself out over the coming days. We had been weighing him daily and at first there had been fluctuations, but he was starting to gain weight and was enjoying his bottles.

  We had decided before he was born that we would wait at least a week before we posted anything online about the new arrival, as we were so scared of any problems occurring. Also, some people had donated to a crowdfunding project I ran last year and had the privilege of naming rights for our next three cria. So, when Little Fella reached the milestone of a week old, we decided the time was right to contact the lady who was due to name him.

  Jan decided upon the name Milagro. In Spanish milagro means miracle, which we felt was pretty apt. We would call him Miles for short.

  That night we went out with friends for a meal and the world felt pretty rosy; we had high hopes that this little fella was going to make it.

  Chapter 30

  Rollercoaster

  The following night, we had to make an emergency dash to Cordoba to buy something for cleaning the pool. We had guests arriving the next day and the pool had been neglected for a few days.

  When we returned we found Miles sitting in the stable with his eyes streaming and when we stood him up he seemed to be disorientated. He walked straight into the wall and bumped his nose, before spinning around in a circle. We made him a bottle, which he was keen to take, but he couldn’t see it and we had to place it in his mouth.

  I had read something about a vitamin deficiency in alpacas that can cause something called PEM –polioencephalomalacia - symptoms of which include neurological and sight issues. This can be cleared up with a course of vitamin B1, thiamine. I quickly posted in a couple of Facebook forums looking for advice, got in the car and went to see Manuel. This would be the first of many journeys back and forth to Montoro over the next week.

  While I was in Montoro, the phone rang. It was Penny.

  “Hi Alan, I’ve just seen your post on Facebook. I think you need to get some plasma into the cria as soon as possible, otherwise you will probably lose him. Also, try and get some thiamine into him; I’ve heard it works wonders with some sight problems.”

  It was Sunday morning when we set about trying to locate some plasma. I tried a farm four hours away, as I thought I could drive there and back in a day, but they didn’t have any. We eventually managed to locate some from a farm in Cantabria, who very kindly asked their vet to send it out to us in an urgent package. Of course it wouldn’t get sent until Monday morning, but hopefully it would arrive on Tuesday.

  We started a new course of antibiotics and thi
amine, although this was part of a vitamin B complex, and not pure thiamine as we had hoped. We were giving different injections every four hours to the poor little mite, plus three different eye drops spread out over the course of 24 hours. On top of that we were trying to get him to feed and also still giving enemas every so often. We were exhausted and I am sure Miles was tired too.

  On Tuesday morning we woke up ready for the day ahead. By this time the cria had stopped spinning around and although his eyesight was still bad, we were hoping the thiamine was starting to take effect. As the hours passed by, we waited to hear from Manuel as the plasma was being delivered to his surgery.

  At lunchtime, I spoke to Manuel and asked him to phone the vet that had sent the parcel and ask whether it had, in fact, been sent out on Monday. The answer came back.

  “No, it didn’t get sent until this morning, but it will be here tomorrow, definitely.”

  So we had to wait another day. We were still administering injections and eye drops every four hours, even waking at 3am every morning to give him his antibiotic shot. So far he was still alive and we were reluctant to alter this regime.

  At about 9am on Wednesday morning, we got the phone call we had been waiting for. The plasma had been delivered to Manuel and he was waiting for me to collect him. I left immediately.

  Over the years that we have had our alpacas, sadly we have had a few times where it has been necessary to administer drugs into their veins. We know that it’s notoriously difficult to locate the vein, particularly if the vet is not that experienced.

  The one time we have tried to give plasma to a baby was with Santa four years ago, in the car park of Cordoba Football Club, where a horse vet tried to find a vein using only the light from what our friend Rita calls a ‘Dickhead Lamp’, a small torch strapped to his head with a thick band of elastic. Ricardo uses one for going shooting. Although the vet had failed to get the plasma into Santa, luckily Bermuda’s mothering instinct kick started and Santa started to suckle and got the required colostrum in time.

  This time it was going to be a harder task. Miles seemed to be doing well. He was strong and fighting us off when we gave him his eye drops, so we were worried that getting him to stay still while Manuel found a vein was going to be tricky. Our last few days had been building up to this moment; if we could just get the plasma into Miles, although we hadn’t actually said it out loud, both Lorna and I felt that he would make it.

  The first thing we did when we got back to The Olive Mill was give Lily and the other girls some food, so we could take Miles indoors to the casita, where we could work on him away from the concerned humming of Lily. This worked like a charm and as we defrosted the plasma and prepared the instruments, Miles wandered around in the casita. Manuel gave me the hair clippers and I shaved a section of Miles’ neck, ready for the IV to be inserted.

  When all was ready and prepared, Manuel took a needle and to my surprise and delight he pierced the skin and made a direct hit first time; I could see the blood flowing into the tube. Now, I have seen and heard of alpaca cria that have been mobile, up and wandering around vet surgeries, and even drinking milk during this procedure, but the needle was precarious, and came out at the slightest wriggle, despite being well secured.

  The plasma has to be introduced slowly so as not to cause a bad reaction, or to upset the young alpaca’s lungs.

  By the third time Manuel had found the vein to re-attach the IV, we had got ourselves into a routine. Lorna was seated on Manuel’s tool box, holding Miles’ bottom half still. I was on my knees holding and supporting his shoulder area, so he couldn’t sit down and Manuel was supporting his head upright. We stayed in this position, whispering quietly and not daring to move for over thirty minutes, while the plasma dripped ever so slowly and moved down the tube into Miles’ blood. As the last few drops flowed in, we all breathed a sigh of relief. Lorna and I had been working towards this moment for days.

  When I returned from taking Manuel back to Montoro, Lorna said to me, “Is that it? Can we believe that he is going to make it now?”

  “I think so,” I replied and we held each other tightly and smiled.

  We had hoped to see quite a dramatic improvement in Miles pretty much as soon as we had got the plasma into him, but still things progressed slowly. His eyes were not improving, but he had started to go to the toilet on his own, albeit with a lot of straining and groaning, so we had stopped giving him the enemas.

  On day 16, Miles was not so interested in his food. In the evening we weighed him as we had been doing and found that he had lost weight, which was cause for concern. Also, his breathing had speeded up. We were a little worried, so we took his temperature. It was high at 40.4 degrees. I called Manuel, who suggested we start him on antibiotics again and also give him an injection to reduce his temperature. So once again I bolted in to Montoro to collect the medicine and we gave it to Miles just as it was starting to get dark. Again we got up at 3am, to check his temperature and see how he was doing.

  This time his temperature had reduced to 39.6 degrees and he was thirsty. He drank over 150ml of the water which we offered to help cool him down. This gave us a little bit of hope, but still his little chest was beating very fast.

  “I’ll go and get Manuel first thing in the morning,” I said to Lorna.

  At 8am Miles drank some more water, but his temperature was still high, about 39.8 degrees, so I went to collect Manuel immediately.

  When he arrived his face said it all. His first words were, “No me gusta,” which we both understood as “I don’t like it.”

  Manuel listened to the baby’s chest and was worried that there may be fluid on the lungs, so he suggested that if he didn’t improve by the afternoon we should take Miles to Cordoba University for a chest X-ray. Lorna and I looked at each other and we each knew the other one didn’t want to wait.

  “Why don’t we take him now?” I suggested.

  “Maybe you could phone them and warn them we’re coming?” I asked Manuel.

  So we all got into the car, and I lifted Miles into the back with Lorna, where he sat quietly.

  Manuel spoke to the hospital as we started the journey.

  Chapter 31

  Deeply Sad

  Not at any stage of the journey had I thought that we were going to lose Miles. Manuel had suggested we could go for an X-ray that evening, so it hadn’t crossed my mind that he was in imminent danger. Still, I drove as fast I comfortably could. As we approached the hospital, Lorna spoke quietly.

  “He’s getting worse. Can you go a bit faster?”

  Unbeknown to me, Lorna had just seen Miles shed two tiny tears, one from each eye, and she thought he was at the point of no return.

  So I sped up a bit and drove past the security gate at the university and hit a speed bump with a bang.

  “Sorry.”

  Just as we turned into the hospital, Lorna alerted me to the fact that by now Miles was having trouble breathing.

  “I think it’s too late,” she said.

  Miles was gasping for air. I wasn’t ready to give up though. I jumped out of the car, opened the back door and scooped him into my arms and ran into the hospital. The lady behind the counter was on the phone and I looked at her as Miles took his last breath and twitched in my arms. He was gone. Thirty seconds later two young vets came running out, but it was too late. They listened to his chest.

  One of them looked up to me and said, “I’m sorry. We had everything ready.”

  Lorna had already burst into tears and she stepped outside to take a few moments to gather herself. I was just standing there, lost. I scooped up Miles’ limp body, said “Thank you” to the staff and left the hospital. I laid his body down in the back of the car and Lorna and I held each other for a few moments. We got back in the car and I turned it round. Lorna sat in the back with Miles and stroked his body gently all the way home.

  Both of us were filled with unanswered questions. Should we have come earlier? Did we do something w
rong? Was it our fault? Also, we’d had to make a quick decision about whether or not we would leave Miles there for an autopsy, to find out what had actually killed him, but both Lorna and I had already decided in our heads, without even discussing it, that if the worst happened, we would bring him home so that Lily could say goodbye.

  A few years ago when Lily had lost her first cria with us, I had taken the baby to the hospital and never brought her home and Lily had been distraught, crying at me for at least two weeks every time I stepped outside, asking me where her baby was.

  The second time it happened the cria died with Lily and Lorna both there, and Lily knew. That was when Lorna, Manuel and I witnessed her shed a tear for the baby she had lost. She had dealt with that loss better, as she knew the baby had gone.

  I had read online about someone who had lost a cria. They had left the body in the paddock for a while, then covered it up with a towel, and after a while they took the body away from under the towel and left the towel there and the alpacas acted as though the body was still there and mourned the towel. We decided to try this technique.

  I went into the paddock while the girls were inside and laid Miles down gently on some hay, before letting the girls out. All three alpacas approached Miles’ body and sniffed him, and then Bermuda and Cassandra walked away.

  Lily sniffed at him and then moved away. She had something to eat, but she kept returning to him. She didn’t try to nudge him or anything; I think she knew he was gone. After a while I took the body away and laid it to rest next to Geri underneath an olive tree. Lily cried for a couple of days, but she is OK now. We have decided to retire her from breeding duties; we cannot take any more heartache and I don’t think it’s fair on her either.