Hurry up spring!

On Sunday we had a snowstorm that brought us several inches of new snow. Today, it's rain and temperatures in the 30's.

This is that sloppy time of year that makes me want spring to get here even faster! I get a little peek at the ground below all that snow. The days seem to be longer with more sunshine. Even the alpacas, llamas and other animals at the farm are looking a happier at the signs of warmer days ahead.

My older brother raises Scottish Highland Cattle and a few yaks at our family farm where we raise our animals. Over the weekend, one of his cows who always has her calves in the middle of February, usually during blizzards, had a beautiful little black heifer. We did some shifting around in the barn and he made mom and new baby a stall to avoid Sunday's snowstorm.

When he brought the calf in the barn, you should have seen all the alpaca and llama ladies! They all gathered at the side of their pen and stared happily at the pretty little -- 60 pound -- calf. The majority of the alpaca and llama ladies are moms and no matter what kind of baby it is, they get the happiest looks on their faces when they see a baby! I wish I had brought the camera outside with me because it was priceless.

Of course all the ladies love to see the new baby, but they are glad that mama cow and calf stay on their own side of the barn. Plus it's just a temporary housing situation for the new mom. She'll be mingling again with the rest of the herd within a couple of weeks.

That's all for today. Hope you are warm and dry where you are!

Sylvia the comedian!

Sylvia is one of our llama girls. She is actually very beautiful, however due to the subject of today's post, I tried to use the goofiest picture of her that I could find.

I always tell people that alpacas and llamas usually don't spit at people. They will spit at each other during squabbles over food or hay. They may also spit if they don't want us to give them a shot. If you have a bezerk male llama (like we do) who doesn't like "change" or new faces, you will also see the spit fly. But for the most part, we don't get spit at very often by our animals.

Sylvia is the major exception on our farm. I'm not sure where she learned it, but she likes to play a trick on new visitors or us if we forget her little joke. She will come up to the side of the fence and reach her face over to look at you and when you lean in and look back at her pretty face -- SPLOOSH!!! She'll get you!

Today it's "warm" out - temps in the 20's. I decided that since the girls have been cooped up for a couple of days, I would let them out. First I let myself out the side door and closed it behind me so I could make a quick check of the fence...just in case snow or animals or something made a weak spot. Everything looked fine so I went back and opened the door - SPLOOSH!! That darn Sylvia was standing at the door when I opened it! I shut the door in her face and got my bearings, then opened the door again -- SPLOOSH!!

That little wench spit at me a second time! I held my hand up in front of her face as a shield and scolded her. I doubt that she cared at all. I'm sure she was laughing at me the whole time! I let the girls outside and checked out my hat. It wasn't in too bad of shape...just a few green chunks of hay. The smell was fierce but I was no worse for wear.

After morning chores were finished and I went inside to clean up, I noticed a few green splatters on my glasses. I haven't lost all my dignity - at least there were no witnesses, right? ... and Sylvia had her fun for the day!

Luxor's Lucas is officially registered!

Hooray! As of Thursday, February 26th, our little Lucas' registration was finally complete! And his sire and dam are exactly who I said they are! According to the Alpaca Registry, we should receive his certificate in the mail in the next week or so. Thank goodness!

If you happen to be attending the Great Midwest Alpaca Festival in Madison, WI, at the end of April, please stop by our stalls to say hello and see Luxor's Lucas, HPF Leroy, Nuno and Frances Bean. I'm excited to attend because we haven't been to a show in quite some time due to scheduling conflicts and bad timing. Those shows really fill up fast nowadays!

I had a pretty good following of readers on this blog and I'm sure I've lost many of them after the New Year with my irregular blogging schedule. I'm hoping to win some of you back though. I should be able to blog more regularly now because I'm one of the latest victims of corporate downsizing. The unstable economy has taken it's toll on the company I worked for so they were no longer able to keep me and many other employees. So while I'm searching for work, I'm able to spend more time with our alpacas. I might even be able to do a better job of marketing them now...who knows?

Lucas - who's your daddy?

I haven't written in quite a while...it's not that I haven't had anything to write about. I just didn't have the time to sit down and write.

I'm going to vent my frustration a little today about the ongoing ordeal with registering one of our crias. You might recall my post back around December when I was registering our three crias Franny, Leroy and Lucas. All went smoothly for Franny and Leroy and we had their ARI certificates in hand within about two weeks.

Lucas has been another story. When I register our crias, I sometimes add an extra "possible herdsire" choice just in case somebody got switched around if we leave more than one female at a farm for breeding with different males. I doubt I will ever do that again. After paying the initial $40 and submitting Lucas' blood sample card, we were later asked to resubmit a new blood sample card - and another $40 - for his dam, Sofie. Oddly enough, there was no problem registering Sofie's previous cria, but now all of a sudden they needed a better sample so they could test for more DNA markers.

Well, that ended up fine and of course his mother is really "his mother". Now it came back that both herdsire choices are a possible match as Leroy's sire! So I paid for yet another blood sample retest for the other herdsire choice (that I don't even own) so that the Alpaca Registry could make up a 14 marker DNA panel to rule out the second choice! I should have gotten the results last week, but they forgot to submit it to the lab.

So this Thursday I will be finding out that Lucas is exactly who I think he is and that I never should have submitted a second choice herdsire when I registered him. All that for $120!!

Say a prayer and keep your fingers crossed that I will have results by this Thursday and won't have to give any more blood or money to get Lucas registered!

A few resources for alpaca information...

I guess everyone's pretty tired of hearing about how cold it is so I'll try to change the topic this time!

It's that time of year when we have to renew our membership in AOBA (Alpaca Owners and Breeders Association) and Suri Network. If you are interested in alpacas, these are great organizations to check out for more information and to find farms in your area. Alpacas Magazine (published by AOBA) and Purely Suri magazine (published by Suri Network) provide a lot of helpful information and news about alpacas including marketing tips, health topics, alpaca fiber crafts and stories about other alpaca farms. If you haven't read these publications before and want to find out more about the wonderful world of alpacas, visit the links above to find out how to get copies of these magazines.

Another good source of information is the alpacasite on Yahoo Groups. You first need to register for the group before accessing it. This is a truly wonderful resource because there are so many people on the alpacasite 24/7. Whenever you need help with a particular issue on raising your alpacas, you can just check out the archives to see what information is available or you can post your question on the site. Not only are there experienced alpaca breeders on the site, but also veterinarians who own alpacas who can provide helpful advice. It's a really nice feeling knowing you're not alone out there.

We've also recently joined AlpacaStreet.com. Their website also has a wealth of information including a listing of farms and ranches in your area (Market Street), fiber information (Mill Street), and plenty of advertising opportunities.

Of course there are a lot more resources online than I can ever list here, but these are some of my personal favorites.

One cold week!

Well we brought Misty home last weekend and everyone was excited to see her. We're happy to have her back and she settled in very nicely.

This week was incredibly cold! Temperatures were down to -15 degrees and that wasn't even the windchill! It's supposed to be warmer this weekend...I was expecting temps in the 20's but so far it's been around 8-10 degrees these last two days. It does feel more comfortable though then it was. We had about 3-4 inches of snow yesterday.

The animals have been handling the cold, cold weather really well. We make sure they have water to drink, a little extra straw to lay on, plus we give them a little more feed and/or hay on those really cold days to keep their energy up and keep them warm.

Nothing new to report today. I'm just waiting for warmer weather!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone has had a safe and happy New Year so far. Here's a photo of what 2009, and actually the last month of 2008, has looked like for us. This is the road to our farm and I thought I'd take some pictures to remember how pretty it looks with all the snow and ice on the tree branches.

Monday morning on my drive to work it was -4 degrees and today it was in the 20s. We had more snow today and expect more later this week. We're hoping to drive down to southern Wisconsin to pick Misty up from another farm. After she lost her pregnancy this summer, we needed to rebreed her. I'm praying for good weather for our drive because it's no fun towing a livestock trailer on slippery roads, especially with a pregnant alpaca in the back!

I received an update from the American Alpaca Fiber Federation recently about the denim show in Paris. It sounds like there was a tremendous interest in the alpaca denim product with over 70 mills, manufacturers, retailers and designers interested in samples of the new Alpaca Fiber - Cotton Denim! Stay tuned on this one... there is sure to be more good news as the AAFF follows up with all of these leads over the next few months. Did I mention that some of those interested in the product were top designers like Salvatore Ferragamo and Versace as well as Gap, Levi, Tommy Hilfiger, Old Navy and more? Very cool!

That's all for tonight. I'll plan to post again this weekend. Stay warm!