Confessions of an Internet Junkie

This will be of more interest to some than others, but I'm here to report that Sparky the Ambiguously Gay Alpaca is now Spartacus the Macho Male Horndog. Dar heard him orgling* the females a few days ago. That was strange enough, but yesterday the Testosterone Fairy stopped by and whopped him in the (truly impressive) testicles. Or something. He was suddenly Threat #1 as far as our herd sire Hannibal was concerned - and with good reason. Spark was going bonkers trying to get through the fence so he could get at the open female. (Who I'm guessing is Cinnamon Girl.) Hannibal was still in with the girls at that point. He was on one side of the fence; Sparky and his little shadow (Neo) were on the other side and the spit was flying fast and furious. Then Hannibal tried to climb the fence to get at Sparky. Then Sparky tried checking out how he could crawl under the fence to get in with the girls. I managed to get Hannibal back into his own paddock, and then I started trying to batten down the portions of the wire fencing that were loose enough for Sparky to try to crawl under. I'm not sure he would have made it all the way through, but it would have been a hell of a mess if he got stuck and I had to try to free him by myself.

Everyone mostly settled down once I separated Hannibal out. I think it was the fact that there was an adult male in with the girls that was causing all of the problems. BTW, our other horndog, Valentino, was blissfully ignoring all of the testosteronics, which is very strange in and of itself. I don't get those boys sometimes.

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*Orgling is the sound a male alpaca makes when he wants to mate or is in the process of mating. It's a pretty unique sound if difficult to describe. Think of it as sounding like an animal humming while he gargles. Loudly.

As warned:

( Neo causes trouble. )

( Kitten first. )

So Sparky is all bouncy and running around like a good little cria. I was watching him from the kitchen window, and I was telling Dar how crazy active he was - running up and down the width of the back paddock, looking for someone to chase him. I was wondering where Valentino was, because usually Val is right there with him, running and bouncing. I didn't think anymore of it, and I went about my business.

A few hours later, I notice he's still running with no one playing with him. Hmmmmm. I wonder if Val is OK. Dar and I go out to the barn to do the evening feeding. I'm up on the ladder pulling down a hay bale when Dar comes rushing in. "I need you. We've got trouble." My heart dropped. Fortunately it wasn't anything life threatening, but it was Sparky still running back and forth . . . in Iceman's paddock! How the hell did he get back there? And he'd been there for hours, which meant not only was he scared and frantic, but he also hadn't been nursing, which isn't good given his low immunity. So off we hustle to get him back to his rightful place. It took a little doing to catch him but not much. He's starting to trust me, so I let him come to me, and he did after a few minutes; I scooped him up and walked him back to his mom. About two seconds after his feet touched the ground he was latched onto her, nursing like there was no tomorrow. Poor baby. We felt awful that we didn't see that he wasn't in his own paddock. And it's another lesson learned: if something seems off - even if it doesn't seem like it's harmful - go check it out to be sure.

After checking the fence line between the two paddocks, we could see that he hadn't crawled under or climbed over. All we can figure is that he crawled through the spacing in the wires. The adults often put their heads and necks through to graze on the grass outside of the actual paddocks. He was probably trying to mimic what they were doing, except he's so thin and gangly he managed to get his whole body through. We're betting that he never tries that again. He spent the rest of the night practically glued to Conchita's side. I swear, he's going to give her a heart attack, the poor mom. And we won't be far behind.

We're back. Kind of defeated, mind you, but back. We picked up the plasma in NY about 45 minutes from the border, then hightailed it back to our place. We got here around 3:30, and Dar set about thawing the plasma while I crashed for about 30 minutes. Dar called the vet hospital to let them know that we were all set to go; they said to come over at 5:30 and the whole process should take about 35-45 minutes.

Because I have a compact car and we needed to transport a very strong and upset cria, we asked our friend Alpaca Di to help us out by using her minivan for transport. She helped us corral poor Sparky; we hustled him into the van while Conchita wailed in anguish. (I so fucking hate this part of working with animals.) We got to the vet's on time, and then it all sort of went to hell.

For almost three hours Dar held Sparky while the vet tried to get the plasma into him. It all boiled down to the fact that they didn't have the right filter for the transfusion. The vet, Andrew, placed two different IVs because the first one popped out. Then the filters kept leaking so he'd stop the transfusion to fix that. Finally after almost two hours of failed IV transfer, he decided to go with the originally planned procedure which involved an incision into Sparky's peritoneum; this carried more risk of infection but was faster and the more recommended process. But even that failed because of the lack of the proper equipment. He admitted defeat at around 8PM.

Sparky got about 1/3 of the plasma that he needed, and all we can do is hope that it's enough to hold him until his own immune system starts to kick in when he's around six months old. (I think I have that right. I'm not the medico in the family.) Dar was wonderful and kept her professional demeanor throughout, but she's feeling as if this were partly her fault because she should have thought to bring her own blood transfusion filter. Which is ridiculous, of course. It's a veterinary hospital - who would have thought that they wouldn't have the necessary tools for a plasma transfer??? Andrew is very embarrassed and rightfully so. He's not charging us for his time, only for the materials used; I hate the fact that there's a bag of unused plasma that's pretty much useless now.

Poor Sparky had the worst night, of course. As I said, Dar held him the whole time, but Di and I took turns helping to restrain him, too. He'd struggle, then collapse. His poor heart would be pounding, he'd go through bouts of trembling and shaking, and his temperature dropped for a while. I was really expecting that he was going to die from the stress, but he's a strong little guy. We're counting on that to get him through this. I know it's foolish, because wishful thinking won't substitute for an active immune system and a strong spirit won't in and of itself kill of infection. But it's what we're holding onto.

Thanks, guys. Dar found an alpaca breeder in NY that will take the delivery for us. What a relief. She's someone that we briefly met at a genetics seminar that we went to a few months ago.

To fill in the blanks for you, Sparky's difficult birth left him unable to nurse properly in the first crucial few hours after he was born. He looked to us as if he were doing all right, and when we realized that he wasn't, we got the cow colostrum into him. We found out this morning that it didn't work as we'd hoped. Now he has no immune system and he's dealing with an eye infection. It could go systemic at any time and kill him in a matter of hours. Hence our panic to get the plasma into him as soon as we can.

Go, little Sparky! Just hang in there for another 36 hours, little boy.