Breeding

We have started breeding our open girls, Maddie, Latte, Jewel and Miss Kitty. Latte, Jewel and Miss Kitty came to us this past year open (not bred), and Maddie slipped her pregnancy last year (we discovered too late in the year to re-breed yet last year). Alpaca gestation on average is 350 days, pretty close to a year!! This means the girls we breed now will be due sometime late May 2012. Typically we have had girls due throughout the spring and summer (May through July). Though we would prefer to have them all due closer to the same time. That way when we are on cria watch, we can watch several at once. Now we watch one female, then weeks later another and so on. If we had more than one due right now, we could have sat home and watched Sancha all day Saturday, but had another one deliver. Since we do have two due in July, we rebred them about two weeks after they deliver so that means some will be due in July 2012, but for the ones we can, we'd like to coordinate due dates a little closer to each other.

This weekend we did three breedings:

Tucker to Latte





Greyt to Maddie





Tucker to Jewel (the newest girl on our farm)







Tehya delivered not too long ago, and should be ready to be bred again very soon. We didn't bred Miss Kitty yet either, so that breeding should be done soon too.

Our reasons for these breeding choices goes beyond the color of the alpaca. We look at all their qualities ~ micron, consistency of crimp, bundling, density, body style and so forth. It's exciting to think of the possibilities of what we can produce with each breeding choice.