Two very wet cria: Pluto is on the right, Mars on the left. Telling them apart does get more difficult: Pluto’s coat is a little ‘whiter’ than Mars but there is now very little difference in size. As per the photo however, Pluto seems to have his ears back a lot more than Mars. Ears rigidly forward in an alpaca means they are on alert, ears up (as with Mars) or slightly back means they are relaxed. When Pluto drinks his milk, his ears are often quite far back – a good thing - although this position also means an alpaca is on ‘listening alert’ so they can hear anyone coming up behind them who ‘might’ be about to ‘steal’ their food. Ears ‘right’ back on the other hand, can be a sign the alpaca is about to spit!! Jack got spat at the other day when she was weighing Pluto. Mercury took exception to her man/woman-handling her little brother so came running over, screamed and spat!!! Like mother, like daughter!! (as in Saturn) And now for the mystery: Pluto has been drinking loads of milk recently, a good 1300/1400ml each day but today he barely made 1000ml. The really weird thing though is that when he came running over for his mid-pm feed, he had a very milky mouth!!! So how come?? We have never seen him even vaguely approach Venus and head for her udder but how else could he have got access to milk!! It is a bit of a mystery but if he IS getting milk from her, it explains his lack of hunger for his bottle today! We DO see him try to drink from Mercury still but each time we check her udder, there is nothing there. In goats, maiden milkers are not uncommon, we have not heard of this in alpacas!!
Of course now we are going to keep a close eye to see if we can see Pluto drinking from Venus, although it won’t be such great news if he is, as feeding two cria may well make Venus lose body condition! We’ll update the blog on this one when we know more...