Cria time again

Well, shearing is done for this year. Now it's cria time.
We have seven more girls due this spring. Pictured here is Holly(the grey) who should deliver today. She is 362 days pregnant and I've given her a shot of Estrumate to help her along. Right now it's raining but starting to clear. The girls are all cold and waiting for the sun to come out.

Waiting for Spring

Wow, this winter has been crazy! We've had more snow than this area has seen in many many years. It's bitter cold for a week, then 50 and sunny, then cold, then rainy. Sheesh. Enough already.
Yesterday was one of the nice 50 degree sunny days so I was out spending extra time with the alpacas.
I see them several times a day but when they are out enjoying the sunshine they seem to look different. Happy. Relaxed. Fat!
Those girls who are bred for spring crias seem to have suddenly gotten enormous. Vanity has 95 days until her "due date" but not only is she visibly pregnant but I've seen the cria kicking and rolling already.
Maddie is due next month. She's laying around alone and already elongating and relaxing "back there". I've seen crias bumping and rolling inside Holly, Rodie, Joy, Jacinta and Poppy so far.
Come on Spring!!! Bring me some girls!

A Little Recognition

The Royal Alpaca Challenge was a great time this year. We loaded up our alpacas Angelia, Juliet, Cristo, and Randy plus Blizzard from Stone's Throw Alpacas and Serafina owned by Helen Price. They were all very well-behaved and excited about the roadtrip.

Cristo

We arrived and checked in with only a couple of small microchip "glitches". Cristo's chip went missing and had to be replaced and Juliet's paperwork had the wrong number on it. Nothing we couldn't handle! Yeah!

As Magnolia Sponsors this year we were stalled on the end of the barn nearest the arena so we didn't have to walk far and also had good exposure of our stall display to visitors.

We swept out our stalls, lay out our stallmats, brought in the hay and water, then unloaded the alpacas from the trailer. They were quite happy to be out of the cramped trailer, but not too sure of their surroundings. They were just glad to be with (part of) their herd so they followed us without question into the appropriate stalls. It was dinner time for them so we removed their halters, fed them and left them alone while we unloaded and set up the stall display.

After that, it was off to the hotel for a little well-deserved rest. We could have stayed around the arena for the sponsor party but our son Brian was with us and he's not much for adult parties.


Angelia



Saturday morning dawned bright and early and we were all ready to go. The exhibitor's mandatory meeting proved to be very chilly and the metal roof over the arena dripped condensation on our heads as the sun heated it.  The judges were introduced, Canadian Kathy Merkley for the suris and from the UK Nick Harrington-Smith for the huacayas. I thought it was great to have some fresh faces (and opinions!) in the ring.

Basic instructions were given and we were dismissed to get ready for the show to start. Production classes were to show first so we had quite a bit of time to wait.

When all the animals were finally shown we ended up with some nice ribbons. Angelia placed 1st in her class, Juliet got 4th, Cristo was 1st, Randy placed 5th, Blizzard and Wendy brought home 6th, and Serafina won 1st. Angelia also won a blue ribbon in Performance with Brian leading her for his very first time in the ring. We're so proud of all of them (and us)! A good time was had by all.

Fall babies

Here they are. The last of our 2010 crias. All girls. All fabulous!

Destiny - Amber CeBonne X Our Peruvian Navigator

Dream a Little Dream - Dominique X Edmunton Prairie Royale



StarDust's cria - Lofty Pine Star Dust X Pumpernickel Fanfare



Another Successful National Alpaca Farm Days

For those of you who don't know, this past Saturday and Sunday were National Alpaca Farm Days. Once again we opened our farm to visitors (like we don't have visitors every day).
Saturday started out with a bang. Dominique decided to have her cria just one hour before the event was to start. She blessed us with a gorgeous dark silver grey female. Oh Yeah! Just what I ordered her to have. She's a great foundation dam! We've named her Dream a Little Dream. Here she is...

Perfect at 17.6 lbs. Dominique delivered by herself. We walked out to check on her just as the cria hit the ground. She was up and walking within 20 minutes and nursing in about an hour. Now all she does is RUN! Love, Love, Love her!

Then Farm Days started officially. We had a steady stream of people all weekend. Several were actually considering purchasing alpacas. Our store was a big hit. Many people purchased alpaca treasures to take home. Wendy Stone was here to lend a hand. She's always a big help and fun to have around. Her mom Pat and neice Morgan came out on Sunday as well. Laura Brewer was on hand both days demonstrating her spinning and carding skills. My mom was providing backup as always.

We really appreciate all the help from everyone. It wouldn't have been possible without everyone of you!

Here's a picture of some of the kids who visited. They are leading Leopold and Juliet through the obstacle course.

The alpacas (and Leopold) all did very well. We used mostly our yearling girls and Stallone, too. We wanted to get them used to more handling.

New Additions to the herd

We've got a few new faces on the farm these days. Last week we picked up these beauties from Susan Darling at My Little Darlings Alpacas...

Delta Dawn is a true black huacaya with a few brown spots. We're happy to add her Augusto genetics to our herd. Then there is true black suri Otono who is a Pardner grandson and also Overtime who is a sweet brown suri gelding. Stop by and meet the new kids when you get a chance!

We're going this week to possibly do some trading that may bring our huacaya herd a couple of new faces and force us to say goodbye to some of our beloved suris. I'll post more when things are finalized.

Update on Crias

Here are the rest of our gorgeous spring 2010 crias...
Bella had a GIRL! She looks so much like Bella we named her IsaBella

Vanity had a great looking HUGE boy whom we named Stallone

And Lucy had a perfect little man we call Leopold

The crias are all perfect and wonderful. Unfortunately Lucy had a bad episode of choke and developed a fatal infection. She died 4 days later leaving us with Leopold at only 6 wks old. He's doing fine though he refuses a bottle. He's grazing alot and stealing sips of milk from the other moms. He's very loving and likes to be petted. We're being careful to let him know that we are NOT llamas and he is expected to respect our space. We don't need a berzerk boy.

With sad hearts we accepted my best buddy Kathy's kind offer of a replacement guard llama. Her big black and white girl Cassadaga has always been one of my favorites so we brought her home to our herd. She's fitting in just fine and even though we will always love and miss our first llama Lucy Cassie has a much more pleasant personality.

Cute isn't she?

Tomorrow we go to pick up a few new animals we're getting from My Little Darlings Alpacas. Two girls-one for me and one for our friend/customer Jim and also a couple of suri boys for me. I'll post pics once they are here.