Disaster struck yesterday morning, our dear Alpaca Hayley nearly lost her life.
Hayley had been poorly due to a worm load a few weeks back and was struggling to gain back her weight as she was feeding a young cria and a cold winter was approaching.
We have been bottle feeding Hayley’s little boy, Darwin, a black Suri twice a day as it was to much of a drag on Hayley.
Hayley was also getting special feed to help regain her weight. Hayley had been improving so we put her in the top paddock with the herd and with free access to good quality hay, we continued to feed Darwin.
Then disaster struck, we had a few days of extremely cold wet and windy weather, Monday night was rather nasty.
Darwin was fed that morning by Pop Al , Mid morning and I hadn’t seen Hayley on the hill with the others as they were thawing out.
Time to go look.
Hayley was along the lower fence line laying down(cushed) and Darwin was running backs and forward between myself and his mum, she didn’t attempt to get up when I approached so I knew we were in trouble.
To make a long story shorter, it was a Wheel barrow trip for Hayley back to shelter as she was to weak to walk, Pop Al was huffing an puffing.
Hayley’s temperature was a low 32.8, she was suffering from hypothermia and at that low temperature she was unable to generate her own heat, so all the hot packs, water bottles etc went into action and our friendly vet Dr Mike lent us his heat pad.
It took 10 hours to get Hayley’s temperature up. She made it through the night, she is still weak and she hasn’t got to her feet today but she is eating and looking very bright so fingers crossed she will make a full recovery.
Below is a picture of Hayley in her jarmies, all wrapped up to keep her warm and happy.
