Tre

No, I’m not breeding for blindness.  lol. However, I have three wonderful alpacas with eye problems. Read My Home for the Blind – Part I (SiSi)

Beloved

This story begins with a wonderful fawn herdsire named Tre. After we had been breeding alpacas for a few years, we realized that we needed to beef up the density of our herd. (this means we needed our alpacas to have more fiber) We searched for a male who could help us with this goal, and we found an incredible one named Tre.

Tre was gorgeous and very laid back. He went to lots of shows. He would lumber into the showring, half-asleep with an attitude reminiscent of Eeyore. “I’m here. Thanks for noticing.” Never the flashiest guy in his class, but judges usually remarked that Tre had the best fleece in the class.  He was often the bridesmaid with a multitude of 2nd place ribbons.

On the farm, Tre quickly became our favorite alpaca. He was so handsome, and so easy-going that my young children could walk him around and enjoy him. With his great personality and textbook perfect fleece, we expected to have Tre for years and years to come.

Then he injured his leg…We imagine that he was playing with the other boys when he tore his ACL. The injury seemed to bother him while breeding so we opted to have it surgically repaired. In hindsight, this may have been a mistake. Tre’s laid back personality lacked the fighting spirit he needed to overcome the complications that followed his surgery. Tre never recovered from the surgery, dying a few weeks later back at the farm.

Losing Tre at age 4 was heartbreaking. It was truly tough on everyone at the farm. His funeral was attended by our family and farm manager, Jeremy. The children made a cross on his grave with the petals from a nearby gardenia bush. We had worked hard to save him. We had loved him so dearly.  And we hadn’t bred him nearly enough.

When Tre died we had only 2 of his cria in utero. When the first one came due, we had a horrible situation where a veterinarian (not my usual one) and I disagreed on whether or not the female was in labor. In the end, it turned out the female had been in labor but she wasn’t progressing because the cria was breech. The cria died during the vet’s attempt to deliver the cria from a breech position a day later. (Note: Do not try to deliver an alpaca in the breech position. Experts recommend a c-section for a full breech.) The stillborn cria was a girl who looked just like Tre. The vet and Jeremy tried to revive her for 30 minutes. It felt like an episode of ER. Many tears were shed. The disappointment surrounded us and weighed us down. We cut a lock of her fleece, and buried her atop her father’s grave.

When it came time for the last Tre cria to be born, I was more than excited and nervous. I dared to hope. My heart had been broken twice that year. I was ready for anything, but I was also hoping so hard for a beautiful fawn female who could carry on Tre’s bloodline. The dam carrying this last cria was Earth Angel, one of the best females we have ever had the pleasure of owning.

Finally, the baby was born. It was fawn and it looked just like Tre! And it was a girl! I remember openly crying with joy, tears streaming down my cheeks.  It felt as though I would never stop smiling. As my children looked on, my son, age 5, explained to his 3-year-old twin sisters, “Sometimes, grown-ups…when they’re happy…they cry.”

Finally, my Tre baby! She was stunning. I named her Beloved. Her eyes were a bit cloudy. Sometimes a rough birth trip can cause corneal ulcers and eye ointment usually cures it. I called the vet to come over and check her out and to give us some drops for her eyes. He said he wouldn’t be able to come out until later. Other than that minor thing, she was perfect.

That night I went out to dinner with my husband. Sitting at a steakhouse enjoying a celebratory dinner,  Dr. Stewart called me from my barn. “Katy,” he said. “This animal is totally blind.”

“Do what?”

He proceeded to explain to me in both veterinary and layman terms that Beloved could not see a thing. She was born without the structures one needs to be able to see. He wondered aloud if we might want to consider putting her down. “No!” I said. “I think I’ve heard of blind alpacas. Let me look into it.”

Beloved

And look into it I did. Sweet little Beloved was bottle fed for the first 2 days. From then on she latched onto her dam. The two of them were thick as thieves. We separated them from the herd in a small pen for 3 months so that Beloved would always be able to find mom and be able to nurse. They were near other alpacas and she could hear, smell, and touch them through the fence.

I did some research and looked for some tipson how to manage her. There wasn’t much available. Beloved has always walked around with a Stevie Wonder-looking head bobbing and weaving thing. As a cria she would run in circles playing with…herself. It was cute and pitiful at the same time. Poignant, really.

Beloved constantly surprised me. I read that I would have to teach her how to drink water out of a bucket rather than from her mom. Just as I was getting ready to do so, I saw her drinking from a bucket. The same thing happended with teaching her to eat pellets. Um, she just did it. Taught herself. I had also read that you couldn’t halter train blind lamas (lamas with one “l” refers to both llamas and alpacas – a little trivia for you). I halter trained Beloved in less than an hour, though I prefer to hook her head in the crook of my arm (very loosely) and I can move her anywhere. She and I both prefer this snuggly, seeing-eye person, way of moving over longer distances.

Beloved loved her mom. We put a bell on Earth Angel for a while but it didn’t jingle much when she walked and the two of them always seemed to know each other’s whereabouts even without the bell. When it came time to wean Beloved, I felt like the most evil person in the world for breaking up their happy twosome. Earth Angel agreed with that assessment as she spit all over me and had to be practically dragged away from Beloved. She looked at me, pleading, “Don’t you know she’s special? You can’t take me away from her. She needs me!!!” I felt guilty and my stomach was in knots over the weaning.

Interestingly, Beloved didn’t seem to notice her mom was gone. At least, not at first. It took her a day or more to notice. She looked for her for a few days, and then she moved on. By that time she was in a field with alpacas her own age that she knew and she seemed to be well adjusted. This was when I started to realize that she had inherited Tre’s gentle laid-back spirit. For Beloved, her temperament is an exquisite blessing. When she bumps into something she doesn’t get upset. She just rolls with it.

Leading Beloved

Every day, Beloved inspires me. The way she knows a gate is open and swings wide of it… the way she befriends the younger, more insecure alpacas … the way she trusts me and is not afraid for me to lead her into the unknown…all of these things bring me immeasurable joy and satisfaction.

Sometimes visitors to our farm are shocked made uneasy by Beloved. They feel sorry for her. I don’t blame them. It would be nice if she could see. But that is not her lot in life. I believe she has a happy life, and I see her triumph every day.

With one of the best fleeces on the farm and no clear answer as to whether or not her blindness is heritable, we decided to breed Beloved.  Most people who have seen this type of blindness say that animals like Beloved have sighted cria. They chalk it up to some sort of environmental problem rather than a genetic one. We will have to wait and see.

Read SiSi’s story in My Home for the Blind – Part I.

Honeybelle and SiSi

SiSi

Once upon a time there was a fabulous alpaca called Isis. Isis was a fine alpaca. The best female on the farm. Isis was taken to breed to a big deal herdsire. The sire’s owners were to take Isis’ cria in exchange for several breedings.  Everyone was happy when the little cria was born. She was a beautiful girl named SiSi (Isis transposed). SiSi was so nice, in fact, that her owner decided to repeat the breeding that created her. It was then that SiSi injured her eye. The vet came and prescribed some ointment for it. SiSi and her momma, Isis, traveled back to the sire’s farm for breeding. Isis was successfully bred, but SiSi’s eye just got worse and worse. The sire’s owners called Isis’ owners and said that their vet said that SiSi would lose her eye and that they did not want her anymore.

Poor SiSi. (At least that was my feeling as I heard her story from my friend who owned her then) Her left eye atrophied and is now small and a cloudy blue color. She cannot see out of it at all. Her other eye is fine. My friend asked me to sell SiSi for her (not because she was blind but because she needed to sell some animals and she has Isis and SiSi’s full brother). I agreed, but once I saw SiSi and put my hands in her fleece, I knew she would never leave my herd.

Years later, SiSi has had two cria for me. She is the type of producer that sacrifices herself for her cria, putting everything into her offspring. She got sick when Napster was at her side. Yet she still produced an amazingly healthy cria, (Ella) anyway. Napster is a Beige Champion and Ella may be even better. Her cria’s histograms top the chart in our herd, making her the best producer statistically. (There are so many good ones, but she stands out…) When we are taking pictures, we like to laugh that SiSi really does have a “good side”. She doesn’t have a problem getting around, and we try not to sneak up on her blind side because that startles her. Bred to Magnum now, we look forward to every year with SiSi. She’s a gem.

Read My Home for the Blind – Part II Beloved’s Story

Stay Tuned for My Home for the Blind – Part III