It's cold!

I've added a new gadget to the blog. I wanted to add just a simple gadget that would tell you the temperature here in Marinette, but then I saw the Doppler Radar gadget and thought that would be really cool. Well, I've got a dial-up connection so all I see is a blur. I may change it in another day or two if it doesn't work.

It was warm on Sunday, in the 30's and raining all afternoon. Then it got really windy during the evening and temperatures were in the single digits and negatives during the night so it all froze. Windchills are in the negatives...I admit I haven't listened very closely to the weather because I don't want to know the windchill! I saw earlier tonight the temperature was a nippy 5 degrees F. I hear the wind howling outside my window every now and then and I'll bet it's even colder than 5 degrees now. Burr!

Everybody in the barn got extra straw to lay on because otherwise the concrete is way too cold. The boys in the shelters outside have a lot of hay - that they waste - to lay on so they will be fine. Of course they've also got all that warm fiber to keep them warm too. Their shelters actually stay pretty cozy and keep them protected from the wind. They all seem to be handling this weather fine but we keep an eye on them to make sure they are comfortable and have water to drink and hay to nibble on during the day.

Great news...Misty has been confirmed pregnant. Now we just have to figure out when to make the trip to pick her up. Hopefully we'll have good weather and no snow on the day we make the drive.

Only 8 more days until winter officially starts!

So why do we have all this snow already?! Plus it's been really cold this past week. We kept the girls indoors and the barn doors were closed this week to keep everyone warm. This morning I let the girls out and they took off out into the field. You can see Sofie here running around in the snow. After I put the camera away they all came running back towards me and the barn - it would have been a cute shot. I think they purposely wait until they see the camera go back in my pocket!

We'll most likely close everyone up again tonight and if not tonight, then tomorrow sometime. It's supposed to get warm tomorrow - in the 30's but we could get some rain and snow. Then it's back to temperatures in the 'teens' for the rest of the week. Ah, yes, Wisconsin in the winter...

Registering the crias

I registered the crias online tonight with the alpaca registry. It's really easy to do although the registration isn't complete until all of the labwork is received and the crias parents are confirmed. Basically all of the "paperwork" and payment is done online so it's nice to get that taken care of quickly.

The Alpaca Registry, Inc. (ARI) requires DNA testing for all registrations. This is done by obtaining a blood sample from each alpaca you are registering and putting it on a card. You can see on the top left corner of this photo the big red blood spot in the middle of the circle.

We're getting better at this every year. I don't like having to do this to our poor little crias but it only takes a few minutes. We use a syringe to prick a spot on the ear to get our blood sample, then we suck up a little in the syringe and carefully squirt it onto the dna card. (I face the "open end" of the needle down toward the paper so it doesn't splash outside the circle.)

Although I'm sure it's uncomfortable to the crias, they really don't act like it was a big deal after we've finished. We make sure to put some pressure on the ear where we took the sample if it bleeds a lot. It stops bleeding rather quickly after that. Other farms may use a different technique or draw blood from the tail or different location. We've gotten comfortable with this method.

You'll also notice above the ARI natural fiber color chart. I clipped a small lock of hair off each alpaca and we matched up their fiber color with the color chart. You can order these directly from the ARI website for about $20 - it really is an important item to have because some of the colors are so close you really can't judge it for yourself that easily.

As a matter of fact, Leroy's fiber was a little tricky because we wavered a little between medium fawn and dark fawn. Depending on how the light hit it, the fiber "kind of" matched both colors. In the end, we decided on the dark fawn.

Now I just have to mail in our dna cards to ARI for processing and wait...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, Moe just couldn't leave things alone. Yesterday he squirmed his way under the fence into the pasture with Iggy and Rico. Everything was fine in the beginning...he even had dinner in there because Rene' thought we had purposely put him in that pasture. A while later, everything got a little crazy and Moe had to be pulled out of there.

Normally, we would let the boys work things out but with Moe's leg injury last year we didn't want to take any chances. He is now in the barn in his own stall to keep him out of trouble. As of this morning, his former roommate Nuno is sharing the pasture with Iggy and Rico. They seem to be getting along fine.

We've got a lot to be thankful for this year - healthy families, healthy animals. I couldn't ask for anything more. Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Enjoy your day.

Success with the crias and trouble with Moe the escape artist!

Lucas has been eating more pellets this week and I saw him drinking water yesterday afternoon! It was cute - he stuck his tongue in the water a couple of times to try it out and after a couple of dips, he lowered his mouth and took a long drink for nearly a full minute. YAY! I was so worried that he would get dehydrated if we didn't keep letting him back in with his mother. Now we can keep them all separated without worrying.

Actually, we can switch our worries in another direction. Our 2-year old male, Moe, has become an escape artist since Friday afternoon. (That's Moe in the photo with Nuno behind him.) We were thinking that he must have found a spot to jump over but we'd never see him do it. After escaping the second time today, I noticed the fence was pushed out in one corner near the ground. There's a low spot on the ground and he must have been crawling under the welded wire fencing! We reinforced the fence with an extra section of goat fencing, plus we placed a couple of cement blocks in the low spot. That must have been the spot for sure because Moe was rather agitated after we patched it up. We're hoping he behaves otherwise we may have to pen him up in the barn.

It was about one year ago that Moe had gotten his rear left leg broken when we moved him into a pasture with several older boys and two others his same age. Luckily, the fractured bones hadn't broken through the skin so the Vet School in Madison was able to perform a successful surgery on Moe. He spent one or two months in Madison before we were able to bring him home and then he was confined to a 12 x 12 stall until we finally felt comfortable enough to set him up in his own pasture with Nuno in late summer. Apparently Moe's leg is much stronger so he's able to crawl under fences on his belly. That's a good sign that we will be able to use him for breeding next spring. We would have liked to use him this fall but we wanted to give him enough time to build up the bone around the repaired area. I hope he behaves and stays in his pasture so we don't have to pen him up again.

Since I'm already talking about Moe's leg, let me take a moment to do a commercial for the veterinarians who fixed him up. I can never say enough good things about our experience with the Vet School in Madison! Every chance I get, I tell everyone what wonderful care Moe received. They saved his life and he actually enjoyed his follow-up visits to Madison. They updated us every day while he was in their care so we never had to worry about how he was doing. If you are ever in a situation where you would need them, I know first hand that your alpacas will be given the best care possible and you will be well-informed about what's going on with their care.

Well, that's all for tonight. Happy Thanksgiving!

Weaning the crias

It wasn't easy getting a picture of these three because somebody was always facing the wrong way or had their face buried in the feed dish. I finally got this picture of Franny (brown & white huacaya), Lucas (center) and little Leroy this afternoon.

We've had a little trouble getting Lucas to eat and drink on his own. I noticed earlier this week, after just about two days separated from their moms, that Lucas was straining over the poop pile. I hadn't seen him drinking on his own so we gave him a bottle of supplement like we've been feeding Leroy. He wasn't too keen on drinking it but we made sure we got the full bottle into him so that he wouldn't get dehydrated. The following morning, to be on the safe side, we let Lucas and the other two crias back in the pen with their moms. Lucas nursed like there was no tomorrow.

Now we've got them on a schedule where we pen them up in the evening at feeding time and let them back out with their moms in the morning. Franny and Leroy dig right in to the sweet multifeed, but Lucas is still not as interested. I've noticed Lucas eating more of the feed this weekend though. I'm hoping he is starting to drink water on his own too. I've made sure he's aware of the water by letting him dip his mouth in the bucket and wetting my fingers and getting a little water in his mouth. We'll still have to keep a close watch on him for a while I guess.

In seven years of raising alpacas, I don't remember ever having this much trouble weaning any of our crias. Fortunately, Lucas is the only one we've ever had to worry about. I can see he's catching on but I don't want to rush him if he isn't ready. For now we'll continue to give him time with his mom during the day until we can see he's able to drink enough water on his own as well as eat pellets.

Oddly enough, as small and young as Leroy is, he's been eating and drinking to his heart's delight - that little guy is definitely a fighter! Since Leroy's eating regular feed now, we're cutting down his bottles to only four per day. He's well over 30 pounds and doing great. Maybe he can teach Lucas to become less dependent on his mom...

Winter is coming...

We just started seeing some very light snow flurries here this weekend but luckily it's still too warm for the snow to stick. The wind today felt bitter cold though and I had to pull out the long johns for the first time this fall! I'm not looking forward to the cold winter ahead.

The time was right for us to pen up our crias away from their moms for weaning. Of course it doesn't make a difference with Leroy because he is still being bottle fed. Franny seems to be handling the separation okay, but Lucas wasn't very happy with it at all. Lucas was humming and trying to find a way out of the pen to get back to his mother. After a couple of hours though, it seemed that all three crias were calmed down and nibbling on hay in their stall. They are set up right next to their moms stall so they are still able to peek their heads through to talk to each other.

We'll have to keep a close eye on Lucas in particular to make sure he is getting enough to eat. Franny has been eating pellets and sweet multifeed for a few weeks now, but Lucas never really seems to be interested in it. I put a few bits of sweet feed in his mouth, one at a time, and he spit them out, one at a time...by the fourth piece though he seemed to realize that it didn't taste too bad. I saw him at the feeder for a little while but I'm not sure how much he ate. He finally relaxed in his new stall and was snacking on hay when I last checked on him. I'm sure he'll be fine but we have to keep an eye on him to make sure he's eating enough now that he can't rely on his mom for meals.

I've also noticed that Franny has a tendency to choke when she eats so I put some grassy hay in the feeder so she'll have to forage through it for the grain. This seems to help whenever we have a problem with an alpaca that chokes. I guess it slows them down so they can't eat as fast. When they eat really fast the saliva combined with the pellets causes the pellets to expand in their throat and they have trouble swallowing it. That's when they start to drool and choke.

Rick and I have different techniques to fix it and I basically try everything I can to help out the choking alpaca. One way that seems to work for Rick is to vigorously rub their neck in long strokes, up and down. Most times I try to pat up and down the neck to loosen things up in there. I'm sure everyone has their own method that works. The alpaca will usually start coughing up green slime from the loosened up feed and after they get some of it out they are fine. Just keep an eye on them and make sure they are acting normal and starting to eat again or nibble on hay.

I'll try to post some pictures this week of our three new roommates Franny, Lucas and Leroy.

Where have I been?

I didn't realize it's been a couple of weeks since the last time I wrote. Time really flies. My back went out right around the time of my last post, then I had some additional health issues to take care of. Now my back is fine and everything is looking much better.

Last weekend we microchipped our three crias. Alpaca farms participate in the livestock ID program by microchipping or eartagging their animals. We use Riley ID and have a scanner to read the chips. The chips come in a sealed package and are inside a very large "needle". We use a special injector that pushes the microchip out of the needle after we poke the needle under the skin. Click on this link to see instructions from Riley ID on how to inject the microchips: http://www.rileyid.com/directions/injecting.htm.

It looks like it might really hurt, but after we're finished our alpacas are fine. They might be upset with us at first, but they get over it in time. Fortunately, we've never had any complications or problems while microchipping our alpacas. As a matter of fact, there most often isn't any bleeding from the process either. It looks lot worse than it is.

I received an update from the AAFF regarding the alpaca fiber they've purchased from member farms. In their latest message they said, "December 3 & 4, 2008 will make history for the alpaca world. That is the date of the Denim by Première Vision, show http://www.denimbypremierevision.com/." The show is in Paris, France, and it's dedicated to denim. AAFF will be promoting their American alpaca denim fabric. Let's hope they have great success at the show so the demand for alpaca fiber increases in the U.S.

Hey, tomorrow is Election Day - don't forget to exercise your right to vote!

HPF Alpaca Fiber - SOLD OUT!

Well we did it. We sold the rest of our alpaca fiber for the year! Now if we could only do that with all the llama fiber we've got stored up.

The American Alpaca Fiber Federation (AAFF) Mobile Alpaca Fiber Processing Trailer pulled in to Green Bay today to pick up fiber from member farms and we were one of those farms. Everyone was really nice. Thomas showed me samples of alpaca thread and denim. The denim samples had different percentages (up to 50%) of alpaca thread in them. The alpaca denim was very nice and looked just as durable as regular denim but had a softer feel to it in comparison to the non-alpaca denim. I'm not sure how much fiber will be used in the end product when they are able to produce the Paca Blues Jeans but I know that people will really love wearing them.

I'm not sure if you've seen the postcards and advertisements for the AAFF, but if you have, you've seen Thomas' daughter Emily with her alpaca. Emily is touring the country with the fiber processing trailer. I had to get a photo of her and her father at the back of the trailer where the ad is posted. I thought it was kind of cool to see the actual model from the ads going from farm to farm across the country picking up fiber for the jeans she'll be modeling some day.

It was a really good experience to meet them all and hear their enthusiasm for this project. They'll be attending a fashion show in Paris later this year to promote their alpaca denim product and hopefully generate more interest in the American alpaca fiber market. I'm really glad to be a part of this and hope to bring a little bit of alpaca into more homes across the United States. Just think, we could be wearing jeans made out of fiber from our very own alpacas! That's really cool.

What's up at the farm?

Here's Leroy and Callista enjoying the sunshine today. As you can see, Leroy is looking great and doing really well. He's finally gaining weight and is now over 23 pounds.

The fall color is really starting to burst on the trees around the farm. This is a great time for taking pictures of the animals because the background scenery is just beautiful.

We'll be busy this weekend, packing up our fiber to sell to the American Alpaca Fiber Federation. We'll be meeting them in Green Bay on Wednesday where they'll be picking up fiber from a couple of other farms besides us. I'll try to remember the camera so I can get a picture for the blog. I'm excited to see the AAFF fiber truck in person. I'm wondering how they can handle picking up so much fiber from farms across the country on each trip. I can't imagine where they store it all. That's what I want to see. Maybe they'll let me take a couple of pictures so you can see it too.

Learning about fleece preparation...

This weekend, Rene' and I went to a skirting bee at another alpaca farm. It was a really good experience for both of us. Since we don't show our alpacas as regularly as we should, I am determined to start entering their blanket fiber in fleece shows and spinoff competitions.

We took one huacaya fleece and one suri fleece with us to the skirting bee. The huacaya fleece is very fluffy and it's important to pick every little piece of VM (vegetable matter) out of it that you can, as well as second cuts (shorter cuts of hair from shearing) and coarse hairs that would deduct points in competition. Basically, you want the blanket fleece you show to be the best representation of the animal. The huacaya fleece we were working on was mainly white but had some small areas of black fiber since the alpaca has a couple of small black spots. We learned that we need to take out the black fiber and just stick with the main color. The judges look for consistency throughout the entire fleece (length, color, crimp, etc) We aren't going to be showing this particular fleece we worked on, but instead were using it to learn from. We plan on selling this fiber next week to the AAFF. (Read earlier posts for more info...)

The suri fleece is a little harder to work with since it doesn't stick together like the huacaya fiber. Suri fiber is long and silky and has more individual locks. Preparing it for competition is basically the same. Make sure all of the VM or as much as possible is removed. We were separating out locks of the same length to be sent in for a spinoff competition. We needed to gather up 2 oz of similar length fiber and put it in a gallon size ziplock bag.

What happens in the competition is that a handspinner takes the sample of your alpaca's fiber and spins it into yarn. As she works with it, she'll write her comments and score it. She'll also pick out any VM and guard hairs to show you why points were taken off for those different things. In the end, you'll hopefully get a ribbon for your alpaca's fiber, but at the very least you'll get some great feedback and a cool piece of yarn spun from your fiber.

I'm excited now and I can't wait to enter and see how we do. I'll let you know in the months ahead how things go with any entries I send out.

Leroy update.

I realize I haven’t updated the blog for a while and I promise to get some new pictures up this weekend.

As you know, our last cria born on the farm was Leroy. Unfortunately, Leroy’s mom is a first time mom who just doesn’t have a clue as to how to be a mom. We tried our best to get the two of them working together – at first she was resistant to him nursing from her, then he was resisted to trying to nurse from her. In the end, we’ve been bottle feeding Leroy for the past couple of weeks. I don’t recommend this for a male alpaca or llama but we had no choice. We couldn’t get any of our other moms to take him under their wing either. It was kind of touch and go for a while, but now it seems that Leroy is going to be fine. He’s only around 19 lbs or so but he is strong and perky and doing great.

Happy Birthday Leroy!

We had another birthday at Hidden Pond Farm on Saturday, September 6th. Our maiden suri Amy (aka Amazing Mist) gave birth to her first cria, a 16 pound male. He's very sweet but a little frail as his new mom is having trouble adjusting to her new responsibility.

We've been bottle feeding him for the past few days but we're going to have to get his mother to take over very very soon. Here are a couple of photos of Leroy.

Happy Birthday Rene'!

It's Rene's birthday today so we gave her the day off from farm work. (She actually doesn't come out on Fridays but we would have given her the day off if she did!)

Thanks Rene' for all the extra help at the farm this past year - we really appreciate it. We wish you a very happy birthday and a great year ahead!

Little visitors...

Joyce and the children from Gran Gran's Daycare came out for a visit today to meet the alpacas and llamas. Check out Heide laying down next to the gate so the kids could get up close and personal with her!

There were about eight children and two adults in the group and they all seemed to have a good time petting and visiting with the animals. We even penned up a couple of my brother's fainting goats who were very friendly with the children.

Rene' and her daughter Beth helped with setting up for the group this morning and Rene' brought a sample of alpaca apparel to show how the fiber is used. She also brought a supply of finger puppets made from alpaca yarn and those were a big hit with the kids! Each child got to pick out a finger puppet to take home as a souvenir of their visit.

We all enjoyed their visit today and hope they had a good time, too.

Getting it all done.

I don’t know how we’ve done it, but we’ve been getting a lot accomplished around here.

Two weekends ago, we squeezed in the task of roofing my house thanks to my boyfriend Marc and my brother Rick. Add to that, baling hay and regular chores, plus our full time jobs during the week. Marc completed the roof this past week. On Sunday, we loaded more hay up into the hayloft and put up fence and a new gate so that we could put two more alpaca boys in a pasture outside. Last night, Rick and I completed siding the front of our barn and it looks great. We have half of one side of the barn to do and we’ll have completed this siding project we started a few years ago.

In addition to baling hay now and then, we’ve also bought a couple of loads from our friends John and Cindy. John was kind enough to drive both loads to our farm from their home about 35-40 minutes away. If you’ve ever pulled a wagonload of hay behind your truck before you know that this isn’t an easy – or quick – task. In fact, John even experienced a flat tire on the wagon with the first load of 200 bales. Our hayloft is looking very well stocked at this point but we will still need more to carry us through to next spring. We estimate that we’ll need a total of about 600 bales since we use almost 2 bales a day for our herd of 16 alpacas and 7 llamas.

Tonight we will put up a small fence to provide an enclosure for Frances and Lucas on one side and a couple goats on the other side. We have a group of visitors coming on Friday from a local daycare. The short 36” high fenced stalls will give the kids a chance to get up close to the animals while I talk about the farm, fiber and the difference between llamas and alpacas.

Well, my lunch break is over so that’s all I can write for now. I’ll try to post more pictures over the long holiday weekend.

What to do with all that fiber!

We've joined the American Alpaca Fiber Federation (AAFF) and I'm excited to see how this investment works out. As members, we'll have the opportunity to sell our fiber every year to AAFF, a guaranteed place to sell it. The best part for us is that they do not require us to skirt, sort or scour it. We also have the option to not sell our fiber if we have other uses/buyers for it and that's what I really like.

The AAFF will travel to major farms, cities and alpaca events across the country with their tricked out fiber truck. Member farms can bring their fiber to these drop off points and get a receipt for their fiber. The special equipment in the fiber truck will allow them to weigh, cut and bale the fiber to get it ready for processing.

Eventually, our alpaca fiber will be made into denim and marketed as Paca Blues jeans. How cool is that? Hopefully, our investment, along with that of all the other AAFF members, will pay off and demand for American alpaca fiber will increase. We took the leap of faith to join the AAFF and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this has been a good move on our part. I'll give a little report now and then as we progress with this new organization.

Time flies...

Over the last couple of weeks since I updated this blog, we've baled hay two or three times. Here's a picture of Rick with the haybine, cutting one hay field back in July.

He and our brother Terry were both baling on Saturday morning until it started raining. What a downpour! Rene' was out in the field picking up hay with her truck until Terry got back out in the field with the hay wagon. The rain didn't last long, just long enough to soak all of us. Rick brought in his wagon load and we put up what we could for the day, spreading it out up in the hayloft to help it air dry over night.

Today they picked up where they left off and we put up another small load. I think we've got about 600 bales so far but we'll need a lot more than that to cover our herd of alpacas and llamas, plus Terry's cows, yaks and goats.

There is always lots of work to do at the farm. I plan to make more time for the blog though. I've been asked to do a farm tour for a small group from a daycare before school starts. I have a lot of preparation to do before their visit...

Summer is here...

Summer is here and it's been very busy lately. We picked up Misty and her companion, Callista, from the Vet School last Friday. Callista had some work done on an abscess gone awry and we have been flushing it out twice a day with luke warm water. It will take some time to heal but she is cooperating very well with her daily treatments.

I'm posting the above photo of our crias Lucas on the left and Franny. They are best buddies and enjoy spending time together in the sun and chasing each other around in the pasture!

Sad news...

Well, I was hoping that during 4th of July weekend I could have updated the blog with pictures of Rick cutting and baling hay. We did get the baling finished but we had an unfortunate situation over the weekend with one of our girls.

You'll recall me mentioning that Misty looked like she was due any day. I'm sad to report that Misty had a miscarriage on Monday morning while in the care of the wonderful doctors and students at the UW-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine.

Misty had been acting strangely all week and had been lactating for about two weeks. On Friday, I noticed that she wasn't eating but she was drinking a lot of water. We put her in her own stall so that we could monitor her more closely. On Saturday morning, Rick noticed she didn't have any beans (aka alpaca poop) in her stall. We gave her some Karo syrup in the morning and again around 5 p.m. Rick had also given her some plain yogurt twice during the middle of the day. This regimen was to help her digestion and remedy her constipation or blockage.

We saw a few beans on Sunday but she was straining a lot over the poop piles. We let her outside with the rest of the girls so she'd be more comfortable. Since there wasn't much improvement in her condition, we decided to take her to Madison for observation. We don't have a local vet who is able to come out to the farm to thoroughly diagnose any serious problems so Madison was our only choice. It's a 4-hour drive but well worth the peace of mind!

Misty underwent a thorough pelvic examination followed by ultrasound. The doctor was unable to really see the cria inside with the ultrasound. Bloodwork showed an infection of some sort. We left her overnight and the doctor informed me the next morning that poor Misty had aborted the pregnancy early Monday morning. Apparently, the cria had been dead for at least a day or two and wasn't full term as we thought. They have been unable to find any specific reason for this so far.

Our girl has been on antibiotics this week and is doing well - eating, drinking and "making beans". We'll be picking her up on Friday.

We are so thankful that she is okay and we appreciate all the wonderful care from the UW-Madison Vet School.

We've finished shearing!

Today, we completed all of our shearing. We finished up this weekend with our four "llama ladies". Two of them are older and easy to shear and the other two are younger and wild when those clippers come near them. Luckily this year things seemed to work out well.

Check out this picture on Saturday showing Gwendolyn with her shorn body and full growth on her neck. This is actually the best we've done with her as we usually do a barrel cut - just shearing around her middle. This year we were able to shear her back end as well, but fell short of shearing her neck. Behind her in the photo is Sylvia prior to being shorn.

We were prepared to take a beating from Sylvia while we sheared her. However, I think she was ready to have all of that heavy fiber shorn so she actually remained pretty still for most of her shearing today. We were very happy that she even allowed us to shear her neck. Maybe she's actually maturing... Here's a photo of the final outcome.

Over the last month or so, we have shorn a total of 13 alpacas and 7 llamas. We took it step by step and sheared from 2 to 5 animals per weekend. Some people may do their animals all at once, but it's easier on our backs to spread it out over several weekends. Plus we can try to get other weekend projects done too. It was a great sense of accomplishment to have the shearing completed before the end of June.

Now we can concentrate on making hay... hopefully the weather will stay sunny and dry for a few days to allow cutting, drying and baling this week.

Yes, you can sell alpaca fiber!

We just did! I know...a lot of people sell it all the time but this is new to us. It's funny because we've been so busy for the past few years with our day to day chores, jobs, etc that I never took the time to even try to sell fiber. I knew we needed to do it, but that was one more thing on the list. Now that we sold some I've got so many ideas for selling more!

The tough part is skirting the fiber to take out all the short "second cuts" and all the pieces of hay, etc. These are farm animals that like to roll around in the grass and dirt. Before we shear them, we try to get as much vegetable matter out of the fiber as we can but we can't get it all out. The only way to do it is to find a comfortable spot to lay it all out and start picking through it. Over the last several weeks we've worked on skirting some fiber for a friend to buy. Rene' and her kids, Rick and I all worked off and on to get it done. It was definitely a team effort! Thank you Kathy W. (and Abbie) for your purchase!

Well, we are finished shearing all of our alpacas for the season and now have only four female llamas to shear this weekend. I think last year we were still shearing in July so we're way ahead of schedule!

I mentioned last week that we are expecting a cria any day now...well it could be any day or any week now. I'm not going to try to predict it and Misty isn't going to tell us until she's good and ready.

Surprise - It's a boy!

Well, we didn't expect Sofie's cria to come along for another couple of weeks, but our due date must have been off a bit. Sofie was humming and acting suspicious this morning and between around 10 and 11 a.m. this 17 pound boy came bouncing out!

Here's a picture of the happy mom Sofie (aka She's So Fawn) and her new baby boy.

According to our mom, before noon this guy was already running around the pasture like he was born a couple of days ago. This healthy and handsome guy is the son of Bruxo's Peruvian Luxor, the 2006 AOBA National Champion White Suri Male. Special thanks to Daley's Pleasant Hill Farm for another outstanding herdsire!

I rechecked our two other pregnant girls and one looks like she's building up her milk supply...I won't be surprised if we have another cria within the next day or two!

Weekend wrap-up

Whew...the weekend flew by really fast and I meant to get the new cria picture up on Friday. Here she is on Friday in top form. I like this picture because it shows the little brown tip at the end of her tail. What a cutie! We have tentatively named her "Franny" after our grandma, Frances.

More shearing this weekend...we finished up four more girls, including Franny's mom Mira. They are so happy to get all that long, thick fiber off to enjoy the cool air.

It's a girl!

Misty's Morning Miracle (aka Mira) and JJA Royal Adonis are pleased to announce the arrival of their new cria. Here is the first official photo of mom and baby soon after the birth. (Mom needs a haircut.)

The new baby girl weighed in at 14 pounds, 10 oz and is nursing well from mom. She's beautiful! Thank you to Joyful Journey Alpacas for their outstanding herdsire.

I'll post more pictures later, but I just wanted to get at least one on the site tonight.

It's shearing season

Every spring we shear our alpacas and llamas. It's amazing how long and thick that fiber grows on them over the winter. By spring, some of them are practically begging to get it shorn off so they can enjoy the cool breezes.

We got started a couple of weeks ago, just shearing our suri male, Moe. He allowed us to shear him standing up in a chute. We didn't want to risk tying him onto the shearing table since he had broken his leg last November. It should be well-healed by now, but the thought of tying that leg down made us nervous.

Two weekends ago Sunday, we sheared five males. Rick, Rene' and I were worn out by the end of the day but we had a really good feeling of accomplishment. All of our alpaca males in outside pastures were shorn, their toenails clipped, vaccinations and worming completed. They were all in good shape and looking pretty cool with their new haircuts. I was a bit bruised and a little battered....some of them like to put up a struggle getting onto the shearing table. This picture shows our shearing table and Rick and Rene' working together with our mom (you can see her hands on the far left) to shear one of the alpacas. They stay pretty calm on the table so it's very easy to work on them that way.

Last weekend, Rick and I sheared our three llama males. The shearing wasn't so bad as long as they stood still. These guys are way too big to use a shearing table so we put them in the chute and shear them standing up. Our biggest guy is Java Joe and he weighed in a 432 pounds! He doesn't like getting his toenails trimmed at all! I'll have to post a picture of him...I can't find one at the moment but I know I've taken pictures of him.

This weekend we'll start shearing the girls...there's about 7 alpacas and 4 more llamas to go and we'll be finished with shearing for the year.

My first blog post!

We've been raising alpacas since 2001 and it's been both fun and frustrating at times. We started with four alpacas and now have grown our herd to 14! Prior to raising alpacas, we had been raising llamas for a few years. We have 7 llamas now and don't plan to breed any more since they are so much larger and a little more difficult for us to handle when shearing, toenail trimming or providing other care. Our alpacas are much easier to handle.

My goal for this blog is to educate and maybe entertain a little. Since we all have full-time jobs, farming is done after work and on weekends. As our herd size grows, so does the work load but it is also very rewarding to see all the smiling faces in the barn every day and hear them greet us with their cute humming sounds! I hope to post at least one blog each week and maybe several a week depending on how much time I have or if we have any news at the farm. We are expecting 4 crias (baby alpacas) this summer so I'll share the news here. Keep checking in because we are on cria watch with one of our girls expecting within the next week or two...