Alpaca Is So Tiny Mom Doesn't Realize She's Given Birth. Owner Raises Her By Hand
Meet Cody, a tiny alpaca with a firecracker personality. She lives on a Colorado ranch with owner Amber Isaac, and has shown a remarkable resilience since day one.
Isaac remembers the day Cody was born — at just 6.5 pounds, the teeny tiny premature alpaca was unlikely to survive.
“The mom didn’t actually even know she’d given birth,” Isaac said, adding that Cody looked more like a fetus than an alpaca.
Despite the odds stacked against the weakling, Isaac wanted to give Cody a chance. She brought Cody indoors to see if she’d take a bottle.
The baby guzzled every ounce of that first bottle, proving to Isaac that Cody had the fighting spirit necessary to live.
With that, Isaac was determined to do everything she could to raise the baby into a strong adult alpaca.
Cody moved indoors, to Isaac’s bedroom, where she was fed and cared for around the clock. Her first two-and-a-half years were fraught with medical issues, including infection, a twice-broken leg, and an illness so fierce it threatened to take her life.
But through it all, Cody remained spunky and resilient, determined to live her best life. She became a part of the household, like a large dog: playing with toys, getting hay everywhere, and learning to go outdoors to use the bathroom.
Finally, at three years old, Cody’s health took a turn for the better.
Now the housebroken alpaca had a new challenge ahead of her: fitting in with her herd outside.
“With her health issues, she wasn’t really able to go out and bond with the other alpacas early on,” Isaac explained. “So in the beginning, having other alpacas sniff her or try to interact with her, she didn’t know how to handle it.”
But over time, Cody became more comfortable being around other alpaca. “She actually enjoys being out there now with them and understands now that she’s part of the herd,” Isaac said.
Cody gets to live in the bliss of both worlds. She spends her days outside playing in the sunshine and eating hay.
As the sun sets, Cody returns to the front porch, ready to go inside to bed. Isaac is soaking up her days with Cody, inspired by the alpaca’s appetite for life.
“It’s just wonderfully rewarding,” Isaac said.
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