Winter Storm Takes Aim at South

A storm that toppled power lines, closed major highways and buried parts of the southern Plains in heavy ice and snow is heading our way. The snow, sleet and freezing rain were expected to crawl east and Central Tennessee could see up to 8 inches and western North Carolina could get hit with a foot of snow, according to the National Weather Service.

After last weeks flooding that knocked down some of our fencing, we now have snow and freezing rain.

My wife got me I-Kam Extreme sunglasses for Christmas.

They are video eyewear and are the coolest thing. I figured I would experiment a bit with them so here's a video of our Maremmas from this morning. This weather doesn't seem to bother the dogs any. They love it!

Sorry about the movement as I am trying to figure these out. I hope it doesn't make you dizzy!

It's a Pronkfest!

The alpacas are really loving the cold weather. For the past couple of weeks the temperature has been hovering around 10° for the low and 24° for the high. I finally caught them pronking with my camera. For those who have never seen an alpaca pronk it’s their way of showing excitement and happiness. Just as dogs wag their tails, cats purr and dolphins do exuberant acrobatics, alpacas… well, alpacas pronk. It's fun to watch and really a sight to see. Here is a short video clip that I was able to capture this afternoon:

Happy Holidays!

We have had our share of ups and downs in this fall breeding season. We had one cria out of Trellianna/Wira Cocha and Titus is doing great. We had another birth out of Ruth Hussey/Wira Cocha but sadly the little female cria died after 10 hours.

Amadora was showing signs of being pregnant - she was acting like she was pregnant but, as it turned out her due date came and went. I think she has a Retained CL (corpus luteum) and we will consult our vet for advice as how to proceed. Basically, if the follicle fails to regress following a lack of fertilization or subsequent absorption of a newly formed embryo then progesterone continues to be produced. Then what you have is a phantom pregnancy. Our girl mistakenly thinks she is pregnant and continues to refuse the amorous advances of our stud. Fortunately this happens only rarely and there is a solution.

Shakira was sent to another farm for pregnancy testing and observation. She was bred and after two weeks she is spitting off with gusto so we'll keep our fingers crossed.

Cria Watch

November has been a busy month as breeding and birthing season is in full swing. All the open females have been bred and field/spit tested. Everyone that is supposed to be pregnant is pregnant except for one not sure (Shakira). She is a maiden so it's hard for me to get a read on her. Shak will get a progesterone test which is a blood test that tells you that your non pregnant female is pregnant. Or, a blood test that tells you your pregnant female is not pregnant. The progesterone test will settle the debate.

We have two females that are due this week and we will see if that holds true. During breeding last year I was thinking I wanted a Thanksgiving Day cria. Now my thoughts are that might not have been so terrific a plan as I'll have the bird in the oven and food to prepare for our guests. We may just have more than one thing coming out of the oven!

Trellianna has been re-bred to Wira Cocha for a fall 2010 cria. It was a 40 minute breeding that went well so I am fairly confident she is pregnant. I will test her in 14 days to see if she spits him off.

Trellianna's Date

The weather has been great this month which enabled me to begin finishing a project I started about a year ago. We want to fence in our front yard so I dug and poured some footers last year in order to build rock columns to tie the fence into. I finally laid the block for the four columns and began facing them with stone. I am halfway through the third one so they should be all finished this week.

And finally, when the remnants of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Ida passed through our region it left a beautiful rainbow on the way out. I thought it looked cool and I managed to snap a few pictures.

It was a double rainbow and you can just barely make out the second one below:

Introducing Titus!

We have named our newest male Titus which is an Old Roman boy name. The name Titus is derived from the Latin meaning "title of honor." As always we have nicknames for our animals and we'll call him Tito for short.

TITUS

He seems a bit shy but is doing great. Trellianna is an excellent mother and will not let him venture to far from her. She is doing fine, no problems with her.

Trell & Tito

I was out in the field this morning to observe the pregnant females and snapped a few photos. It's a nice crisp fall day and the leaves are turning and look beautiful.


Marilyn is checking me out as all the girls surround the golf cart.

Here's one of the boys looking back at me and the girls. Notice the foliage in the background!


While walking in the field I looked down and what I thought was a leaf turned out to be a baby snapping turtle! He's about 100 yards from the stream.

Thor (front) Rocco (back)

I can't help but throw in a picture of our future herdsire. Is this guy gorgeous or what!

Sergio

It's a Boy!

About ten minutes elapsed since I had just returned from the field after checking on everybody. All was well and the animals were grazing. It was 8:45 am. I went to pour a cup of coffee and happened to look out the window and saw a small commotion in the field. There were several alpacas with their heads down, it actually looked like they were grazing but, Santo our male guardian dog, was right there in the middle. The grass was tall and I couldn't see anything. I decided to go outside to see what was going on.

By the time I got outside I saw the cria get up on all fours and walking. I thought wow, that was fast. I immediately called Tara and told her the news. She asked if it was a boy or girl. I said I wasn't sure because I haven't even touched the cria yet. Then she asked what color it was and I couldn't tell her because the cria was wet from laying in the grass and it looked darker than it really was. She said check it out and we'll talk later as she had to go to a meeting.

I wasn't sure who the mother was as we have three girls expecting, but quickly figured out it was Trellianna. I wasn't anticipating a cria today as Trellianna's due date was November 10th. The cria was born on gestation day 337 which is fairly early but still normal. The cria was not small by any means and weighed just over 17 lbs.

I followed the pair and observed for about two hours and took some photos along the way. Trell delivered the afterbirth after 35 minutes and I got it out of the pasture. The cria was nursing 10 minutes later. Everything is normal at this point. I put them in our nursery area to bond and all is well. The cria's ear is a bit floppy but I figure it will straighten out in time.

As the cria is drying he appears to be white which will make Tara happy.

Here's a few pictures from this morning. I'll let Tara pick the name as I'd probably name it Bob.

These two pictures are taken in the nursery area and the little guy is drying off. Good thing too as it is raining now.

Let the Breeding Begin!

With the breeding season in full swing we’ve been full of activity on the ranch. Wira Cocha was a busy boy this week breeding Shakira, Aurora and Marilyn. We absolutely love what we have gotten from Wira Cocha and with Marilyn as a full Peruvian, we plan to have a full Peruvian offspring (hopefully female) next fall.

Wira Cocha/Marilyn Breeding

Ottimo filled out an application for stud row and he was accepted! He was immediately put to the test with a breeding to Argento our silver girl. Otto, as we call him, has Peruvian Victor genetics as well as Peruvian Don Julio and Peruvian Oro. His sire is dark rose grey so we’re hoping to create a silver offspring. However, alpaca breeding is like a box of chocolates... you never know what you'll get! Thankfully, Otto had no problem knowing what to do. I thought he did great for his first time.

Ottimo/Argento Breeding

We will field test each female 14 days after the breeding session. If any of the girls kush we will breed them again. Now we just sit back and wait for the crias to arrive next month.

Here's yours truly putting the finishing touches on a new pasture. With too much fighting amongst the boys, we had to separate the yearlings from the older males.