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...