Bertie about 30 minutes old

So – our first male llama has been born at Les Fragnes. Bertie arrived about 11.30am on Saturday 28th May. He’s the fourth cria in a row to be born on a Saturday. All our three 2010 babies – Victoria and Georgina the llamas, and Elrond the alpaca – came on that day of the week. What is it about Saturdays and llamas I wonder!

Mum is Windermere and Dad was Bernard, who died in January this year of old age. It’s lovely that his son is here. And baby’s name, Bertie, is based on his Dad’s.

Bertie is good and strong. He knows what to do to suckle, but he hasn’t got the where sorted out quite yet. Windy has got plenty of milk, and she didn’t mind me firkling around under there to get it flowing. Bertie has sucked some milk off my fingers but isn’t latching on to Windy. We’ll have another couple of tries later this evening, but I’m confident he’ll have it sussed before long.

Windermere and Bertie

He has lovely markings and he’s good and woolly. He has his mum’s hairy ears!

The only slight concern is that I haven’t found the placenta yet, so I’m not sure if Windy has retained it. We’ll keep a careful eye on things for the time being.

Bertie has dried out and gone all fluffy now that he’s nearly five hours old. Much more handsome!

Dry and fluffy now