Please Say a Prayer!

Our newest cria Marina has suffered a serious injury. She has a humerus fracture to her right front leg. I rushed her to our vet yesterday afternoon to take a look at it and because the fracture is so high up, a cast could not be put on. Tara and I are just devastated by the turn of events.

We are weighing out our options and I have another vet coming out today for a second opinion. She is unable to stand for more than a minute at a time and is very unstable as you can imagine which makes it virtually impossible to nurse. I am having to hold her up in order for her to nurse. I need to do this at least every three hours which means waking up at 1:00 am and 4:00 am to care for the young cria. She is confined to a small area as to not aggravate the injury any further. I'm hoping later today the vet can help to immobilize the leg in order for the bone to heal. Then hopefully soon she can get used to standing on three legs so I won't have to assist in nursing. Right now she needs our help and we'll do whatever it takes to help her. She is so sweet and innocent and we can't stand to see her in this shape.

Marina is getting plenty of milk and is very strong. And Marilyn is a fantastic mother, stands at attention while allowing me to hold the cria up in order for her to nurse. This is encouraging and enables us to remain positive through this ordeal.

If you would please, say a prayer or send good thoughts to this wonderful little cria. She could sure use some help right about now!

Cria Update!

I just got back from the barn and everyone is doing fine. The young cria's are settling in nicely and everybody seems to be getting along. We have settled on a name for Marilyn's little female cria and her name is Marina. The name is Italian in origin and it means "Of the Sea".

Marina had a bit of a leg problem yesterday afternoon. Her right rear leg sort of bowed out as she walked. We were a little concerned but figured it was just cramped and today it was 100% better. Here she is tonight with Marilyn. She never ventures too far from her momma and Marilyn is the perfect mother, she takes real good care of her young one. She will let me touch and handle her without getting irritated which is nice.

Marilyn & Marina

Sammie's little male cria on the other hand is a little spitfire. He rarely sits still for me to take a picture. I finally had to corral him in a pen so I could make him sit still for a second. He just loves to run.

We have named him Sergio which is the Italian form of Sergius, a Roman family name.

Sergio

A Father's Day Cria!

What a surprise. I went to the barn for the second time today to check on the girls and lo and behold, just as I opened the barn doors Marilyn was standing five feet away and had just gone into labor. I ran to the house to tell Tara and to grab my camera and fifty minutes later a female cria was on the ground!

She weighed in at 17 lbs. and is unusually colored, mostly light fawn with white around the neck and top knot.

She was born at 2:30 pm and was up on all fours in about 45 minutes and nursing in just about an hour. So far everything looks normal. We'll check her out a bit more in the morning.

I'll post the names of our two new additions tomorrow and get a few more updated photos as well.

Here are some pictures from today:

She's a Cutie

Marilyn & Cria

It's a Boy!

Sammie gave birth today at 1:45 pm, one day shy of my birthday. It was a male cria weighing in at 17 lbs. and has an interesting color make-up. He is half white and half medium fawn. It is another Wira Cocha son and first pairing of Samantha/Wira Cocha.

Sammie is doing great, doesn't look like she's in any pain and the cria is doing awesome. He was standing in about 10 minutes and nursing within 20 minutes. I dipped the umbilical cord in iodine and got a weight on him and now I'm basically on observation mode. Everything is normal thus far and Sammie has expelled her afterbirth. I will now remove it from the property.

Here are some early photos. No name yet as I leave that to Tara otherwise I'd name him Bob! It will most likely begin with "S" and be Italian in origin.

Now I'm off to the barn.

We Have Contact

Good Looking Boy!

Argento Loves Crias!

The Weekend Came and Went....

.... With no cria's on the ground. I thought for sure that Samantha would give birth sometime over the weekend but, she's still pregnant and the cria is still kickin'! Thursday evening when I went to the barn the cria to be was kicking up a storm inside of Sammie. So Friday night when Tara and I went to the barn to check on everybody I brought my camera and shot this video. It is a 60 second clip that captures the cria kicking inside of Sammie. There's not as much action as the previous night however, you'll see some movement at the 12 second mark and again around the 36 second mark. Here she goes:

The vet was here last Thursday to castrate two of our companion males. I had never seen the procedure done and wasn't going to watch at first but I figured what the heck. I will tell you it's not for the faint of heart but it was interesting and I'll leave it at that! I also had him draw blood for ARI registrations and I wanted him to check out Juliet who has developed a skin problem. He said she most likely had a zinc deficiency and gave me a medication to spray and blot on her problem areas. In just a few days the skin seems to be clearing up and has lost its scaliness. I am also giving her doggie Petabs with zinc and extra grain with the vitamins and minerals and she seems to be doing fine. I expect the hair to grow back in a few weeks.

Tara Getting Mauled by Trellianna & Juliet

While the vet was here I asked him to do a fecal exam on our alpacas but he said he can tell by looking at the poop piles and the animals that it wouldn't be necessary. He believed the animals looked healthy and everything seemed normal so I will take his word for it.

So that's the weekend update. It's cria watch again tomorrow morning and we'll keep you posted!

Aurora's Breeding

Aurora was bred today to Wira Cocha. We decided to hold her back last fall and switch her to a spring breeding schedule. She has a problem with the summer heat and her last three births have come about 18 days early so, we wanted to see if her gestation time would change on this schedule. It might be that her body is just dialed into about 330-335 days instead of the 350 or so that most of our other alpacas give birth on. So we'll see what happens next year. I have put a target date of 5/26/2010 for next years cria which would be around Memorial Day.



It was a fairly long breeding session at 42 minutes. The two of them hooked up right away and I didn't have to help out in any way. I just had to peek to make sure he found the right spot but I didn't have to lend a helping hand so to speak!

I'm still on cria watch as Sammie's due date is Friday and Marilyn is due the following day. If I were a betting man I would say Sammie's cria will come on Friday and Marilyn's I will predict next Wednesday.

Here is a picture from today around 5:00 pm while the girls went out to graze in the shade. All of our crias have been born in the morning but I wasn't taking any chances and have been keeping a close eye on Sammie. She's due to pop at any time. The dogs are doing what they do by keeping a sharp eye out for any predators.

Shearing Day!

Yesterday was shearing day on the farm. All eighteen animals received their yearly haircut. Linda from My Sweet Alpaca was the shearer and she did a great job for us.

Tara and our son Jansen worked their tails off with rounding up the animals and haltering them and keeping a systematic order so Linda could keep a nice steady pace. Tara also handled the bagging of the fleece and fiber samples and labeled them accordingly. She also took care of the photography duties. I helped with the heavy lifting and laying down the animals on the mat. Ten hours later we were all totally exhausted and ready for a nice cold shower.

But, the animals were loving life!




Here's some pictures from yesterdays event.

Tara & Jansen rounding them up

Jansen (The Alpaca Whisperer) reassuring Marilyn

Yours truly holding Aurora for some dental work
(She threw me off twice - she's extremely big and strong)

Ottimo's dense & soft blanket fleece

Samantha just shorn and very pregnant
(Due date: 06/12 - You can see her noticeable bulge)

And last but not least we have our Stud Wira Cocha getting his turn. He is about as gentle as they come and never put up a fight. He really just laid there and sort of enjoyed the whole ordeal like it was a massage!

Cria Watch

We have two girls expecting, Sammie June 12th and Marilyn June 13th. Sammie hit her target date right on the button last year so we'll see if she can do it again. For Marilyn this is her maiden voyage so we'll see how she handles her first birth. Sammie is a bit irritable but seems to be doing just fine. Marilyn seems a bit uncomfortable which is understandable for her first birth. She reminds me of how Trellianna was last fall, showing signs of discomfort and probably wondering what the heck was going on.

The month of May brought tons of rain. It rained for three straight weeks which wreaked havoc on our hay baling schedule as well as shearing. We had to re-schedule shearing day to June 6th because the weather was nasty on our scheduled day plus the girls fleeces were a muddy mess. You don't want to shear a wet alpaca as it will ruin the fleece. Luckily it hasn't been too hot and I have the fans going so everyone is fine. Tomorrow they're all getting haircuts.

After weeks of rain our 11 acre hay field is finally cut. I won't square bale this first cutting as it is not up to the quality that I would like. Instead, it will be round baled this weekend and the good thing is that every bit of it is sold. This makes more room in the hay barn for the second cutting which should be very good quality.

I have been trying to get a decent picture of our true black male Massimo. And I'm still trying. A black alpaca is the hardest thing to photograph. Massimo is developing into a gorgeous young stud and he has filled out an application for stud row. He has the softest, finest fleece you could imagine and would be a spinners dream to spin his fiber. He just might make the cut!

Sorry, but this is the best I could do:





It not all about alpacas here on the farm. It's never a dull moment around here with all of these animals. Here's Koko, the maniac Hahn's Macaw that keeps me company when I'm doing paperwork or working on the web site. She will "Hello Koko" you to death!



Here's Oreo our farm cat that thinks he's a dog. He just strayed up one day when he was about 8 weeks old and he liked it so much he thought he'd just stay. And we're glad he did because he is the best. He is a real man's cat and likes to hang out with the guys. He even comes to you when you call him. As you can see he has it very rough here on the ranch.