Birth of a llama

The nose appears first; the amniotic sac is still intact. Individual female llamas tend to have their births about the same time of day each time. For survival purposes, early in the morning but after the sun is up is ideal — lamas do NOT lick their offspring nor eat the placenta, so they are completely dependent on the sun to dry off the baby before the chill of night returns. In domestication, "ideal" isn't necessary, so normal births range from pre-dawn to early afternoon with most still occurring early to mid morning.

I chose to break the amniotic sac and clear it and the "extra" fetal membrane (unique to lamas) from the baby's nose and mouth, based on issues with Ceilidh's previous offspring (by a different stud) having extremely thick fetal membranes, compromising oxygenation. The membranes surrounding this baby were entirely normal.

The front legs shoot out next. This event is what normally breaks the amniotic sac.

Ceilidh has been responding to the baby's noises since I cleared the membranes, making noises possible. Now that the feet have emerged, Ceilidh can SEE what's making those noises and she gets excited, spinning around and around.

This is no fun. Ceilidh lies down (briefly) to take a breather. Lamas virtually never give birth while prone; this is just a "do ANYTHING" approach to getting rid of those mega-cramps.

Ceilidh's interlude allows me a chance to show you how the baby is already trying to breathe. In any normal llama birth, the umbilical cord is still attached and functioning at this point, but will be pinched off in the near future as delivery progresses. Even though it's got to be nearly impossible to breathe with all that mom squooshing baby's rib cage, the instinct is very strong.

Ceilidh is back up and the ears have emerged; baby shakes head and ears every so often, which has got to feel weird! The shiny membrane covering the ears is not the amniotic sac, but the second membrane unique to llamas. Nobody has bothered to do any DNA or RNA research to determine exactly where this second membrane originated genetically, but at this point strong evidence suggests that it's a duplication of the amniotic sac membrane rather than a duplication of the skin (as originally suggested and as still stated as fact in many veterinary texts). Why exactly do lamas have this second membrane anyway? It's likely a survival advantage or it wouldn't occur genus-wide. It has been stated that the second membrane keeps the baby's coat dry, but anyone who has attended a lama birth knows the coat is anything but dry. In this photo, you can see the fluid collecting in the membrane at the ends of the ears! Maybe it's nature's windbreaker during birth. Maybe it thwarts predators by making the baby itself harder to grab. I suspect we humans will never know the real answer.

Ceilidh took another break and I took the opportunity to photograph the rubbery pads covering the ends of the toenails. This goes a long way toward keeping mom's innards from getting torn up. The pads wear off within a few days. The shiny appearance of the legs is the second membrane.

Still checking ...