Success with the crias and trouble with Moe the escape artist!

Lucas has been eating more pellets this week and I saw him drinking water yesterday afternoon! It was cute - he stuck his tongue in the water a couple of times to try it out and after a couple of dips, he lowered his mouth and took a long drink for nearly a full minute. YAY! I was so worried that he would get dehydrated if we didn't keep letting him back in with his mother. Now we can keep them all separated without worrying.

Actually, we can switch our worries in another direction. Our 2-year old male, Moe, has become an escape artist since Friday afternoon. (That's Moe in the photo with Nuno behind him.) We were thinking that he must have found a spot to jump over but we'd never see him do it. After escaping the second time today, I noticed the fence was pushed out in one corner near the ground. There's a low spot on the ground and he must have been crawling under the welded wire fencing! We reinforced the fence with an extra section of goat fencing, plus we placed a couple of cement blocks in the low spot. That must have been the spot for sure because Moe was rather agitated after we patched it up. We're hoping he behaves otherwise we may have to pen him up in the barn.

It was about one year ago that Moe had gotten his rear left leg broken when we moved him into a pasture with several older boys and two others his same age. Luckily, the fractured bones hadn't broken through the skin so the Vet School in Madison was able to perform a successful surgery on Moe. He spent one or two months in Madison before we were able to bring him home and then he was confined to a 12 x 12 stall until we finally felt comfortable enough to set him up in his own pasture with Nuno in late summer. Apparently Moe's leg is much stronger so he's able to crawl under fences on his belly. That's a good sign that we will be able to use him for breeding next spring. We would have liked to use him this fall but we wanted to give him enough time to build up the bone around the repaired area. I hope he behaves and stays in his pasture so we don't have to pen him up again.

Since I'm already talking about Moe's leg, let me take a moment to do a commercial for the veterinarians who fixed him up. I can never say enough good things about our experience with the Vet School in Madison! Every chance I get, I tell everyone what wonderful care Moe received. They saved his life and he actually enjoyed his follow-up visits to Madison. They updated us every day while he was in their care so we never had to worry about how he was doing. If you are ever in a situation where you would need them, I know first hand that your alpacas will be given the best care possible and you will be well-informed about what's going on with their care.

Well, that's all for tonight. Happy Thanksgiving!