More bad news I'm afraid. My gorgeous boy, Bailey, died on Wednesday after a short illness. We called the vet out to come and see him on Monday and, to be honest, she wasn't very optimistic then, although she did say he may have a chance. We dosed him up with all the medications she left and he seemed to be doing OK. Tuesday afternoon he was running away from me in the field because he knew I was going to be pouring nasty stuff down his throat.
On Wednesday morning I went to give him his medicine (this job was down to me as my neighbours, Rob and Tammy, left on Tuesday morning for a trip to the UK) and he was just lying in the barn, unable to stand. I think I knew then that he wouldn't be with us for long. I gave him his medicine anyway in the hope that something might work, and left him some hay in case he felt like eating.
When I went back again, late afternoon, he was dead. Luckily, Eric had gone with me - I think we both suspected what we'd find.
I decided I should take his fleece - at least I'll have something of him to keep. I started off with scissors but that was taking too long, so Eric had a look around and found Rob's shearers. It went much faster after that. How sad that the first animal I ever have to shear is a dead one. He'd become quite a little fluff-pot so I'm confident I'll be able to spin this.
We took him out of the alpaca barn and left him in Rob's workshop for the night.
The next day we buried him next to Impala (my first alpaca). Eric surprised me with a little wooden cross with his name on it. It took us a while to dig the hole as we had to do it with spades - couldn't find the key to Rob's digger. But eventually it was done. When Impala died we buried him with a carrot and a rose, so Bailey had to have the same, except I didn't have any roses in the garden. He got a narcissus called Cheerfulness - seemed appropriate.
So, the end of another era. I still can't quite believe it's happened again - he was only seven and a half months old. Sweet dreams Bailey.
