Wednesday, December 31, 2008

The end of the year

Here our first full year of alpaca farming comes to an end. The first alpacas, Victoria, Kateri and Snowstorm, showed up at our farm in November of 2007. Early in 2008 Sancha, Sommerfield and Maddie came. Then we had the unexpected death of Remington :( who was soon replaced by Maxito. Maxito has since been traded for Apollo Griffon. We gained Tucker, a son of Grey Wing. And we have our three cria born in 2008, Lightning, Shelby and Tehya. From 3 alpacas to 11, our farm has grown a lot in the last year.

The fun parts of the process have been the births and going to shows. I also think we have had a lot of family time taking on farm projects. I'm impressed what farmers the kids have turned out to be. The hard part has been the unexpected health issues (Remington, then Lightning needing a transfusion, and J hurting his back)and growing faster than planned (we had to put in another barn and buy more food than we had budgeted for).

2009 we are expecting at least 3 cria. Sancha is due in just over 4 months. Then over the summer Victoria and Kateri should deliver. We still do not know if Sommerfield is pregnant, if so, make that 4 cria. By next year at this time we could have a farm of 15. Then 5 cria for 2010! And 7 for 2011!! That's a farm of 27 by 2011. Even with the females only having 1 cria a year, we are growing faster than we had planned.

I also hope to get my picture issue resolved soon so that I can get pictures back on my blog. I need those cute faces to keep it interesting :)

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