Sad day at Swede Farm

Our second daughter Christin loves fiber arts. Specifically she loves weaving. So a year and a half ago her grandfather very generously bought her two alpacas, a male named Texas Gold and a female named Chocolate Sundae. Sundae was bred to deliver her baby in June of 2008.

Sundae's delivery did not go well and the baby died.

Then Texas Gold became sick and by the time we found a vet that would see an alpaca Texas was too far gone. Frustratingly we could never find a cause for his death--his blood work and all other tests were fine.

In January Sundae went to stay with the breeder. The plan was to get some weight on her (she had lost a lot when she delivered and was slow to put it back on) and then be bred. Today Sundae was going to the vet for ultrasound confirmation that she was actually pregnant. When she jumped out of the vehicle at the vet's office, in a freak accident, she broke her leg. It was not just broken, it was shattered--and it was a compound fracture. It protruded past her skin.

We discussed all of our options and in the end surgery would require a month plus at the animal hospital and have only between 30-35% chance of survival.

So we opted to not put Sundae through this and she was put down.

At this point we feel like we are flunking Alpacas 101.

The breeder was more than kind and is not only paying for the bills at the vet office, she is also offering Christin a replacement Alpaca. But Christin is still, understandably quite sad.

This has to be the hardest part of owning animals. We wanted to fight this, we wanted to give her the shot but in the end we realized that that was for us, so that we would feel good about our decision. Sundae was an old girl. She was one of the last batch of Alpacas brought into the country form S. America. There is no telling how old she really was but at any rate, at her youngest possible age she was still past Alpaca middle age.

Anyway we made the best decision that we could for Sundae and now we move on.

Please keep Christin in your prayers, she is rather unhappy right now.