Eyecatcher's Little Girl!

Finally, Eyecatcher presented us with her beautiful brown female cria (sired by Maverick) this morning, all 22.2 pounds of her! Our other fall crias have been averaging around 16 pounds, so she was definitely a whopper and acted bright and mature from the start. She was up and nursing in a record 10 minutes, and Eyecatcher seems to be recovering just fine. Above, she's about 4 hours old and we let her run with the other crias for a while.

I got some pretty neat video of the birth! Before you watch the clips, I would advise making sure to turn down the sound. Eyecatcher is MUCH more vocal than most (many make no sound whatsoever) and was with last year's cria as well. Paul said she sounds like a dieing dinosaur, but he admitted he would, too, if he were having a baby! I don't know how to edit the sound, sorry.



We like to leave the dams with their herdmates during the birth if at all possible, (often on clean pasture if it's not too cold) and then will either keep them with the herd or isolate them in a stall to bond. It was cold today, so we quickly got them into the warm stall and partially blow-dried the cria after weighing, which was difficult as she was SO active! They are snug as bugs in the warm stall tonight, with Paris and her new cria to keep them company. Obviously, these are just partial clips of the labor and delivery- this one took about 15 minutes once she was in active labor.


Eyecatcher and her cria will be sold in the upcoming Belleau Wood Auction in Charlotte, North Carolina. Would anyone like to suggest a name for the cria?