The Waiting Game

I haven't blogged because I thought I would wait until we had the last two cria on the ground but we are on day 388 and still no sign.  We called our vet out earlier in the week to scan the pregnant girls as they were both still spitting off and looked pregnant but we had decided that they couldn't possibly be any longer, but in the case of Rosie we were wrong.  JJ (our vet) found a cria with a strong heartbeat but also said that it didn't look as though she was ready to birth within the next week so I am still on cria watch.  It had better be a pink one after waiting this long.  I actually thought that I had put the mating date in the computer incorrectly so telephoned the owner of the stud we had mated her to and double checked the date.  She is obviously going for some kind of a record.  We had a long discussion about conception in alpacas and about how it is still a bit of a mystery as to how long after mating conception occurs but I was more fascinated about how long sperm could stay alive.  I know it has been a strange year for alpaca pregnancies but this is really getting ridiculous now.

We have been enjoying this years crop of cria though, their fleeces look fantastic and we have already started to plan who to breed them to in the future.  We let them out of their paddock during the day so that they can free range, well, they say a change is as good as a rest. 

Delilah, whose sire is Samson who resides at Wellground Alpaca Stud and her dam is Hemiccoyo Cricket.  Her background includes Ruffo and Hemmingway and doesn't she know it? 

Penny Lane lying down in the foreground and Exhibition is trying to coax her to play.  Carrie is almost hidden in the background but the three of them love pronking and charging around together all day.

Tilly helps with the chores during the day so the alpacas are used to her.  They just think she's an alpaca whose legs have been chopped off.  Cherrybomb still looking pregnant but is actually empty.  I was really looking forward to seeing what she produced.

Penny Lane is Wellground Juno's 2010 production.  I know we shouldn't have favourites but she is a delight.  She is full of mischief and if she wants the dustbath when another girl is in it she will bite their ears until they move.  As soon as she sees Tilly she comes across to kiss her.

Carrie is proof that you can use 'Alpaca Royalty' bloodlines but you still can't make them behave like ladies.  She takes great delight in rolling in the poo pile and it then takes ages to catch her to pick it off.

Si has been building the walls to the barn and it is now a mad rush to get it finished before the weather gets really bad, especially now that we are having a really late birth. I must admit he has been doing amazingly well for an accountant, even if it is slow going but there are so many other things to be done, like spit offs, toe nail trimming and stocking up the animal's hay. 

The weather has been absolutely glorious for November and we have been working outside without coats on as it has been so warm, but I think that is about to change over the next week or so and the grass may stop growing.  We have been lucky in that respect as the alpacas have not been eating so much hay. 

Winner Takes It All

Ok, maybe not all but a lot more than we were hoping for.  Yesterday was the inaugural GWR Fleece Show and we couldn't attend because we are still waiting for Cherrybomb to produce her first cria and she seems to be in no hurry.  We had entered fleeces but didn't get our hopes up as we knew that they were going to be up against some top quality animals and the judge was to be Dominic Lane who must have seen some of the best fleeces produced in the world.  In the middle of the afternoon my phone rang and it was Rosemary from Westhill Alpacas who was helping to run the show and she just had a quick few seconds to tell me that we had got a 1st and a place but she didn't know which classes and had to get off the phone to get back to collecting fleeces for Dominic to judge.  We were over the moon as that was much more than we were expecting.

We had even better news in the evening when Rosemary phoned again once she got home.  We had actually got a 1st, a 2nd plus two 5ths and a highly commended.  The highly commended was for Cherrybomb's fleece and what completely amazed me was that she said that Dominic had mentioned Cherrybomb had had a nutrition problem at some time in the year.  He was absolutely right.  During the really bad weather this winter I had noticed that she wasn't feeding at the troughs with the other girls and it took some coaxing to get her to feed.  She now insists on being fed by hand.  We are particularly pleased because we have got prizes for animals that we have bred ourselves so it proves that we are heading in the right direction.

You can now see picture of our multi prize winning herd.  It feels so good to type that.

 Penny will rest her head anywhere, here it is resting on Carrie's back

 Five of this year's cria with a couple of their prizewinning mothers

Penny again, she's not old enough to eat hay yet so has taken to wearing it instead and Exhibition is quite happy to eat it off her.

In My Ears and In My Eyes

We've had so many problems trying to blog this past week, we've scanned the computer for viruses, cleaned up the hard-drive and finally we have been able to upload pics.

First we have Asparagus Now, named after one of our favourite young bands in Liverpool.  He was born last Tuesday.  Si had checked all the girls when he fed them and a couple of hours later I was washing up in the kitchen when I looked out of the window and saw a cria charging round the paddock.  We ran straight over, by the time we got over there he was at the milk bar.  He is the fastest cria we have ever had, even Si had difficulty catching him to spray his navel.  We're assuming he hadn't been out long as the placenta hadn't been passed.  He's doing really well but it was a shock as he wasn't due until the 18th of this month.

 Asparagus Now

 Penny Lane

Cherrybomb welcoming Penny into the world

I got up at first light this morning to check the remaining pregnant girls and nothing seemed to be happening so I went back to bed for a couple of hours.  We got up again at 8 and Si went through to make coffee while I made the bed.  I looked out of the bedroom window and thought I counted an extra cria in the paddock so dashed through to the living room to get a better look.  Si said that I had miscounted and sure enough he was right.  I was drinking my coffee and watching through the window while Si went out to feed all the animals and the next thing I knew my mobile was ringing, it was Si.  I had been right, there was an extra cria in the paddock, it was just that her mother was in front of it when viewed from the living room.  She is a few days early and really small but perfectly formed.  She seemed cold and was shaking so we put a coat on her once we had towelled her dry.  We had to move the other alpacas out of the paddock to give her some time alone with her mum, even all the cria were trying to get her up before she was ready.  She is still slightly wobbly on her legs this evening but has been trying to have a play with the other cria.

I'm hoping Cherrybomb will have her cria tomorrow as it looks as though it has dropped today and she is bulging a bit at the back.  She's also really fed up and keeps turning her back on me as though it's my fault she feels so bad.

Note to Rosemary - the title is from Penny Lane by The Beatles