Wilhelmina, Wilhelmina, She's The Cutest Little Girl ............................

Great Day. Fewer Tears, lots of laughter.

I got straight out of bed when I woke to come through and check the overdue girls and saw that Condor was trying to feed from Sanctimonious. Wrong, even though it was only just after 5am she had given birth and the new cria was up and attempting to feed, you know, the usual thing of aiming for the right area and then going right under the mother and coming out the other side. By 6am we were back inside having wiped the cria clean, she had fed, pooed and weed so we knew that everything was in working order so it was time for us to have coffee.

The computer went on and I announced her arrival to the rest of the world via Twitter and Facebook because we had been chatting on there about the length of these pregnancies.  People were still watching Tuesday night TV programmes while we were practically propping our eyelids open with matchsticks, it was so early.  The internet has certainly made the world smaller.

She has been welcomed by the other cria and they have all been having fun showing off to the new arrival.  Wilhelmina has been doing her best to keep up with the chasing games and we have spent most of the day around the paddocks, only coming in when it was going dark.  Hope has spent the day sitting round looking really fed up and I really hoped that she would produce her cria later in the day.  Maybe tomorrow. How many more times do I have to say that?

My sister and I chose the name on the phone today while we were talking through some of the official stuff that has to be done.  Dad was called William. 

Once Hope has had her cria we have a few weeks break before we are on cria watch again so I will make the most of it by getting out to the shops and maybe even the odd lunch out a la Les from Wellground.

It has been lovely watching the Elite girls in their new paddock today.  They have obviously been delighted to get their cria back from last year and they are all back in their family groups.  We have decided to try the two day thing, as suggested by Rosemary of Westhill Alpacas , so Cooper was mated to Chance again tonight, the big problem we had was that Carrie didn't want to be separated from her mum again and Temple and Cherrybomb, Chances daughters from previous years, wouldn't leave Carrie alone either, so they all had to be allowed in the chase next to where the action was taking place.