Hetty Pegler’s first cria Sarum is born

Sarum is my first baby cria.  She was born a few days ago and she makes me very happy.  Six days late, but who’s counting.  Well, my people were, but cria will be born when they feel like it.  Not big, but a lively little thing.  Thrashed around she did when she was born.  She was up in a few minutes and trying to feed within half an hour.  The people said this was the fastest they’d seen.

 

A wet first night, so the entire herd was shut in the yard.  But, on Tuesday we were allowed onto the fresh grass of Home Field.  By the afternoon, Sarum was haring around like a mad thing.  I ran with her, and Belas Knap, Tintagel, Rollright and Moai were excited enough to run along with her.  She’s brilliant.

 

We spent last night in the yard too, but have been out in the field since.  It’s very windy and my cria lies snuggled up to me.  My mother, Maes Howe, or Granny as she’s now called, doesn’t interfere.  There’s none of that ‘you should do this with the baby’ or ‘in my day, we used to feed our babies ever 30 minutes’ stuff with my mum.

 

Marden will give birth in a day or two – she’s waiting for good weather – and she’s paying close attention to Sarum.  Good ol’ Long Meg has been our constant companion these last two weeks.  She’s been a mother four times and knows we need a little help and comfort up to the birth.  She and Marden have big humming competitions – you should see them wandering round the field munching and humming to no llama in particular.

 

Sarum is all brown with a darker face.  She’ll probably look very like me when she’s grown up.  She was born on Monday and the birth took just over 30 minutes.  She weighed 10.9 kilos which is not big, but as I say, she has terrific get up and go.  In fact she’s off now, running nowhere special.

 

Six days old.  I never thought I could love anything so much.

 

 

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