Disappointment

Snickers (official name Persnickety Miss) came to our farm just a couple months ago. She had been bred to Conan (6Peruvian Conan 5039 IMpr98). We were very excited about this breeding.

When she first arrived we spit tested her. This is where you put a male in with her and if she cushes, she's open (not pregnant). But, if she's pregnant, she will run and spit and get mad at the male. Initially she spit tested as pregnant. But a couple weeks ago when J brought a male back to spit test Maddie, he feared Snickers was no longer pregnant. Then this week he brought a male back to breed to Kateri, and indeed, Snickers is not pregnant. It is not usual for an alpaca female to absorb the pregnancy. I don't know the official stats, but I've heard as high as 30% reabsorb. Some you never know that's what happened, because by the time you test them, it has already happened and you're more likely to think the pregnancy just never took. I'm leery how accurate that statistic is, but if you do add in all rebreedings, I can see it. (though I would point out that all rebreedings are not absorptions, but I don't know how to sort out which is a breeding that didn't take and which is a reabsorption. I don't think that statistic sorts it out either). While we've had to rebreed a couple times, we have not experienced a later term reabsorption. Snickers is the first that I can think of where it truly is a reabsorption. Of course it happens when the male is far away. It would be easy if it was a breeding from a male on our farm.

We'll need to figure out who to bred Snickers to now. I was really looking forward to that Conan cria too :(

You may have noticed that I started putting some tickers at the bottom of the page for 2011 cria. Tehya, Cafe and Sancha are all spit testing as pregnant, and have been added to the bottom of the page with a due date ticker. (I actually need to take Cafe's down now that she is no longer on our farm). Maddie has been bred, but I never heard if she's spitting off or not (J usually handles the breeding schedules and spit testing). Kateri was just bred this week, so it's too early to tell. Victoria just had her cria, it's too early to breed her. Add on Snickers who we now will need to breed - that's 7 breedings we've had to work out!