Premature cria

We've just had a cria born earlier than we thought possible. He seems healthy, fully developed, and feeds well. Last year his mother gave birth to her first cria on 8th July, we re-mated her on 10th August and again on 13th August. We had estimated a birth date this year of 29th July, but he was born on the 2nd July. There were no other males on the farm and we didn't introduce the female to the newly acquired stud till 10th August.
Is 324 days exceptionally early for a llama gestation?
Are there any obvious medical issues we need to be aware of?
Do individual females tend to have cria gestation lengths specific to themselves? We now think this same mother had a premature cria in 2008

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Permalink Reply by Emaly Leak on July 7, 2009 at 4:53pm: I'm not going to comment on the issues of premature crias (there are more experienced breeders out there who can comment), but I do think that females tend to have their crias around a similar gestation time. We had a female (sold now) who would routinely deliver her crias about 2 weeks early (around day 335). They were always healthy and fully developed (except for floppy ears), and were large for early crias. I don't think that 324 days is exceptionally early- alpaca breeders have documented live births (and crias that lived to adulthood) starting around day 290. While anything under 330 is considered a bit unusual, it is not terribly early. Good luck with your cria! Ours was 3.5 weeks LATE this spring/summer!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Robert Dewar on July 8, 2009 at 1:56am: Thanks Emaly, this is extremely encouraging. 290 days - that's 9 and a half months which WOULD be a shock! I'm delighted you were able to give us this information.; ▶ Reply to This

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