Mercury is growing fast – she is now over half as tall as the adults and getting much friendlier. She won’t yet eat from our hands (unlike her very greedy mum) but each day when we go to feed Saturn, she gets a little bit closer and closer.
She is now 23kg which is lighter than any of our dogs and only around a third of her eventual adult weight. We weighed her this afternoon and as soon as the deed was done, headed for the shower. This was because Saturn took great exception to us man-handling her baby and SPAT at us. It was not pleasant: regurgitated grass REALLY smells.
The instinct to protect is extraordinarily high in alpacas and when we rounded them all up, the four adults made sure Mercury was well and truly in the middle so we could not get to her: amazing!!