Pretty Baby

Stars live in the evening

But the very young need the sun, uh-huh
Pretty baby, you look so heavenly

This should have been yesterdays blog but Google had a bit of a blip that lasted over 24 hours.

I think I now have one of the prettiest paddocks in the whole, wide world.  Out of the six girls that were due to birth during the spring we have had four female and two male cria.  Five are together in the one paddock and it is so joyful to watch them running round during the day.  Eleanor was the firstborn and she then had a long wait for her playmate.  Once Heaven came along they bonded straight away and they are together most of the day even though they have welcomed the new babies into their games.

Finally on day 387 of her pregnancy Hope gave up and pushed out this beautiful male cria.  It involved a call to the vet as for over half an hour there was just a little twitching nose showing and we thought that the cria may be huge so I didn't feel confident about getting him out.  Laura and Si were going to hold Hope while I 'went in' but it took Laura so long to get her shoes on that the feet then slid out.  Si cancelled the vet once we were sure that the shoulders were out ok and soon after we had a lively male cria on the ground.

 We were going to put a coat on him as it was a bit cool but as we were drying him the sun came out so we left him bare so that he could dry faster.  It didn't take him long to get up and find the milk bar.

 Wilhelmina sitting regally amongst the buttercups which I hope get cut down tomorrow.  She wants to play when the rest of the cria have settled down for the night.

 Heaven is just off to see if Condor wants to play.  I failed completely in getting a shot of Condor on his own as he was too fast

 Eleanor was obviously feeling left out so stood and posed for a snap on her way back from being weighed.

Eleanor had been giving Piper kisses but Hope decided that she would break it up.  You can just see her behind them trying to push her nose in.

This morning was fantastic.  For the first time in months I was able to pull the quilt over my head when I woke up instead of jumping out of bed to check the girls.  I now have about five weeks before I'm on cria watch again so it is just like being on holiday.