Spring?

Can it be? Is there really no snow left on the pasture? I see some on the outside edge of the fence, but the pasture is finally clear (I'm sure just in time for us to get more snow, it is Michigan after all).


Zack with Thunder who came to the edge of the fence to greet us. The cats know that around 5 p.m. we will show up. They often sit out there and wait for us.

Emma feeding Sommerfield and Snowstorm treats:

Sommerfield with hay hanging out of her mouth:

No further sign of a baby from Sancha. Now I'm hoping she'll hold off until my birthday, that would be a neat birthday present!

Spring and the pregnant girls

Sancha is due in April, but her belly seems plenty big already. I've gone to watching her baby move everyday after she eats her grain. We wonder if she may deliver soon (before due date). She seems to be showing some signs (teats are bigger and her private area is pink, which is said to be a sign of delivery soon). J put tape on her tail so that it's out of the way during birth and will keep it that way until she's bred again (usually about 2 weeks after birth they are ready to breed again).



The snow seems to be melting in a line across the pasture, starting on the north side and moving to the south. It must have to do with how much shade each area gets. The alpacas, especially the pregnant girls like to walk along the line of the snow and eat the grass as it emmerges from the freshly melted snow.

another paddock and catch pen

Since we put up the second shelter in the winter, we were not able to adjust the fencing. The original barn not only has the pasture fenced in, but has a paddock and a catch pen. The purpose of the catch pen is to assist in "catching" the alpacas so that we can halter them. The catch pen has one openning, and is a small area so that the alpaca has no where to run. The idea behind it is that you can grab at the alpaca in that pen, but not outside of the pen so that they feel safe from being grabbed otherwise (they hate being grabbed so their feeling safe is important). The paddock is nice if we want to keep the alpaca's near the barn, like if the vet is coming, we can herd them into the paddock/barn area and close the gate so they can't get too far away. That way we do not have to chase them all over the pasture.

The ground is still somewhat frozen but we managed to get the fence up for the paddock and catch pen. Now I need to get going on halter training Sommerfield and Maddie, I've been using the excuse of too much snow on the ground and no where to halter them.

The kids were curious about what J was doing (putting up the gate), and the alpacas were curious.



the alpacas trying to figure out what we are doing:


The paddock


The Catch pen (really hard to see in a picture, it's between the paddocks. Each paddock is directly in front of the barn door, the new catch pen butts up to both paddocks):

Earning their keep

The cats are officially earning their keep. I came to the barn yesterday morning to find a dead mouse. Good job kitties! I predict that Fluffy is the one who did the killing but Thunder has been a lot more active lately so could have done it also.

Cria watch

We are officially on watch for Sancha's cria (baby). She's due April 20th, but it's close enough she could deliver any time now. I've been excited about the birth coming soon and ask her everyday how the baby is. But when I saw it snow on Friday, I got the feeling that this cria is going to wait for warmer weather. I have heard that spring cria are often born later rather than earlier, and fall cria are more likely born earlier rather than later. The theory is that they are born for the warmer weather. But who knows. Just because most spring ones are born later doesn't mean Sancha definately will be one of those. So I will still be studying her everyday.

Last night after we fed them their grain my neice and I watched Sancha's baby move all over in her belly. It looked like a wave going across her belly. We found if we looked at her left side we could see the movement better.

Check Him Out

The Buccaneer is Victoria's and Snowstorm's young brother. He's done awesome in the show ring and now starting his stud career. When we bought Victoria and Kateri we were also given 2 bred backs. This summer we will use one to bred Kateri to Buccaneer.

Kateri: mom to a champion!

Kateri's first cria, Princess, won Spring Bling Color Champion!

Princess (I can see some resemblence to Kateri) more pictures can be found on her web page at South Haven Alpacas:

Princess is a bay black which is very hard to get a good picture of (the dark fiber animals do not show their features well in pictures, unfortunately).

Princess remains at South Haven Alpacas (link to South Haven Alpacas on the left column of the blog, she is listed as "for sale" on that web site, click on her name and you will get to her page with more pictures and a description of her).

Kateri, who we call "Kateri Berry", is the proud mom

Kateri tends to be shy but I was able to get some close up pictures of her






Now I really cannot wait to see her cria for this year! She's not due until July so we have quite awhile to wait. In the mean time, Sancha is due with her baby April 20th, so could be born anytime now. Every morning I look at her and ask how the baby is, but no sign of anything yet. Maybe she will hold off until my birthday.

The morning

This morning down on the farm the alpacas were begging for treats. J started giving them treats every morning when he was there feeding the pregnant girls. Of course now I carry on the tradition.



enjoying the treats

A close-up of Victoria, it's hard to get a good picture of her face because her fiber is so dark

The Chute

I don't know if I have posted a picture of the chute J made to do herd health care. I think it was made during the time I did not have a camera that worked. Here is the dreaded chute:




It looks tall and slim but all the alpacas fit in it fine. Even Sancha who is close to 200 pounds (with a pregnant belly). When not in use for the alpacas, we put the cat dish in there.

It has been helpful in holding the alpaca still during vet checks. And some of the alpacas do well in it for toenail trimming. Victoria and Maddie are fine in it, and really so is Sancha. Sancha hates being haltered but usually will go in the chute ok. Now Kateri and Snowstorm, they HATE the chute. We've gone to trimming Snowstorm's nails in the field instead.

I'm back

I spent the last two weeks out of town at a training for my "other" job (I work part time out of the house). It was a good training, but I did miss my babies (both the human ones and the furry ones ;) ).

I did come home on the weekend to help J with a herd health day. Sancha needed a shot since she is due very soon. And they all needed toe nails trimmed. Sancha spit at J when he tried to get her in the halter, but after that she was fine. Kateri not only spit when we haltered her, but spit constantly when we were trying to get her into the chute. I got two good face-fulls of spit - NASTY! The smell alone is bad enough. My eyes were irratated for a few days (I have heard of getting an eye infection from the spit). We ended up not even cutting her nails in the end, gave up. I guess she was having a very hormal day. The young girls did fine. Though I do need to work on halter training them. Snowstorm gave us some resistance, but his nails were so bad we had to trim them. We ended up trimming them in the field and not even bothering with the chute since we couldnt' get him in it.

Sancha's baby is due April 20th. J wrapped her tail with tape to help keep the fur out of the way and to help us see progress without having to touch and move her tail. She did not like that tape at first but now does not seem bothered by it.

Everyone seems to have adjusted fine to the changing around of barns. J put a barrel of hay right by the gate separating the two pastures. They often lay by that hay barrel as if they are hanging out together.

We still have solid snow cover on the pastures. I know they are looking for grass, but none to be found quite yet. We have a lot of mud by the barns. Hopefully spring with come soon, this slow thaw has been messy.

New Barn Arrangements

On Saturday I moved Snowstorm, Maddie and Sommerfield to the new barn. We decided this would be best with Sommerfield being so attached to her mom, Sancha. Sancha is due with a new baby in April (though their window of having the baby could be a month earlier or a month later). We want Sancha to get a break from Sommerfield (she often spits her off, carely annoyed with her). And we want to make sure the new cria is safe. Likely all would be fine with them all remaining together, but since we can separate the pregnant ones, we might as well do so and play it safe. We have heard stories of other alpacas harming the new cria, espeically when it's first born and still weak. We want to make sure the cria is strong enough before having the young girls around it. After the cria is born we will reevaluate the separate herds and decide where to go from there. But it depends how strong the new cria is.

So I separated them, then fed them. I wanted Snowstorm and the young girls to view the new barn as a good place with food! Then I filled the hay bucket and water bucket. They ate but then realized they were cut off from the others and started fighting with each other. I thought Snowstorm was annoyed at Sommerfield because she kept humming (whining and crying). J thinks Snowstorm was asserting his dominance, that he is leader of that pack. That makes sense.

Victoria did not like that she was the only one in the barn at feeding time. I moved Kateri and Sancha into the pasture because Victoria steals their food. Victoria has gotten too heavy which puts her at risk for having a difficult labor and difficulty producing good milk. We need to slim her down some (the cria will get what nutrients it needs, just like in a human the baby gets what it needs, the mom is the one who depletes, but we will make sure not to cut her back too much because she is pregnant). After the gate to the pasture with Kateri and Sancha was open, Victoria was fine.

Sommerfield continued to hum and Kateri did also. Sancha just stood around and looked. Snowstorm got into a few spitting matches with Sommerfield. Emma got very upset about it saying that Snowstorm was being too mean to a baby girl. I did watch and Sommerfield held her own, though I do think Snowstorm is leader of that pack!

In the afternoon I took a walk and went by the pasture/barn several times. I found at times Snowstorm and the girls were in their barn eating, and the pregnant girls were by the gate between the two pastures. At other times the pregnant girls were in their barn and Snowstorm and the young girls were by the gate. They did seem to want to be together. Sommerfield was by far the most upset, most often standing by the gate trying to get through. But that just shows why we need to separate her from her mom. She is too attached and with a new cria on the way it is past time for Sommerfield to break that bond. It is sad to see her so upset. But I think about when Maddie first came to our farm, she looked for her mom and hummed. But she survived and is doing fine. Sommerfield will too.

I felt bad leaving them separated over night. At first I debated letting them all be together over night and then separating again in the morning. But given how difficult it was to herd the right ones in the right pasture/barn. And given how insistant Sommerfield is in getting back to her mom. I decided that letting them be together overnight would just make it harder to separate them in the morning. They will sort it out.

It will be interesting to see how they are this morning.

Another big change is that Snowstorm, Maddie and Sommerfield will be switched to only eating grain once a day. That is all they need (technically they do not need grain at all, but some is good for fiber production). I have been feeding two times a day for the pregnant girls. But it was too hard when they were all together to just feed them and not the younger girls and Snowstorm. Now that they are separate, I can just feed the pregnant ones. I expect when I go down there to have some objection, especially from Snowstorm. But they will get use to this change. I will make sure they have plenty of hay and water.

Favorites

Maybe I shouldn't have favorites but I just can't help myself. Kateri and I first bonded when she arrived and she was the shy one in the back. Victoria and Snowstorm always got things first and got the attention so I made a point to seek out Kateri. She also hummed a lot when she first arrived. Likely out of aggitation. I think she missed her baby, Princess (who remained at South Haven Alpacas). I also love Kateri's hair, it's wild.




Maddie captured my heart the first time I saw her picture. I love the white and black coloring on her face. Right now she's the youngest on our farm, and the most friendly.

Sommerfield is a sweetie too but not quite a friendly as Maddie. She has incredible fiber! It is long and thick and has crimp. I can't wait to have some made into yarn.

Here are the two young girls:

Knitting

Here are some of the things I knit over the winter.

First a scarf that I made out of alpaca yarn:



A baby layette, but not out of alpaca yarn (it would have been nice, if I had some I would have!):


Slipper socks for my niece (again, not out of alpaca yarn, but still good practice at knitting):

Pictures!

I finally got some pictures back (from the period of time I did not have a digital camera).

These are from last fall. The first shows off our green pasture with the alpacas in the distance. We hope once the snow melts that beautiful green pasture will come back!

We had a lot of leaves that had to be raked up. Don't let Zack fool you in these pictures, he was not really "helping" more goofing off while I raked the leaves.



Crazy cat! Fluffy loves to crawl on people's shoulders.


Snowstorm eating out of the 1/2 cut PVC pipe.


A picture of Kateri from this fall (before snow):

Moving barns

Our plan is to move Snowstorm, Maddie and Sommerfield to the smaller barn. This will give Sancha a bit of a break as the two little girls follow her around everywhere. Sancha is due April 20th, but could deliver a month early (or later). We want her to have a peaceful and ease as possbile. Sommerfield is very attached and could benefit from some independence.

We started a trial run at feed time last night. We got the two girls and Snowstorm into the other barn to eat. Snowstorm did not want to leave Victoria. And Victoria appeared upset as she was pacing in her barn. Sommerfield ran to eat, but after her meal was done she tried to get through the gate to go back by her mom. Since it was late at night and already dark we openned the gates between the two pastures/barn and let the alpacas choose where to go. This morning we plan to separate them and see how they do for the day. I have not decided if I will keep them separate or allow them to sleep together again tonight for a more gradual transition.

I will be gone all week out of town. J will have to take over the daily feeding. At least with the pregnant girls in one barn he will just need to feed them in the morning, and everyone in the evening. We did discover that Victoria has again put on too much weight so we need to cut back her food. Sancha needs extra as she is in the last months of pregnancy.

Vet visit

We had the vet out to our farm yesterday. This was a meet & greet along with some exams. We needed blood drawn on Maddie for her ARI registration. We also were interested in having the 3 bred girls tested to make sure they are still pregnant. Alpacas can absorb the fetus, even when they are further along. Stress is usually the cause. Since they all came to us bred, there was stress in transport and in coming to a new farm. We *think* we can see Sancha's baby in there, and I was pretty sure I could see a baby bump on Kateri, but Victoria did not look the same. I was chalking it up to her carrying different. She must be carrying a boy and the other two have girls (or so I was theorizing).

The vet did an ultra sound on all three bred girls. Kateri was first and a pregnant uterus was found along with some baby parts. All seems well. Sancha was next. Since Sancha is due in about 7 weeks it was harder to find (due to how the alpacas carry the baby) but a baby was spotted moving around and kicking :) Victoria was last and her's was very hard to find. The vet wondered if Victoria might be further along than what he thought. We did not think that could be possible as she was transported to Hibben Hollow and bred to Goldsmith shortly after arriving there. She would not have laid for Goldsmith if she was already pregnant. The vet was able to find a spine that had to be from the baby. Still a mystery why it was located in a bit different spot.

We discussed with the vet a vaccine schedule and she took a fecal sample.

After the vet left J looked over Victoria's file and it turns out she had the same thing happen the last time she was pregnant. She must really carry differently than average. Since her first cria, Contessa, was born healthy and through a regular birth we are less concerned about the odd ultra sound on her. Though we will keep a bit of an eye on her in case she delivers before due date.

Moving On

First, we cancelled the 2 shows we were going to go to this spring. Since we can't show Remington we only had Sommerfield to show. Maddie is old enough now, but has not had the necessary blood work for registry, and that cannot be done in time for the spring shows. We did not feel it worth taking just Sommerfield. Though we do plan to attend the Indiana show in early April. Victoria's first cria, Contessa, and Kateri's first cria, Princess, will be shown by South Haven Alpacas. We are very excited to see how they do!

The other thing we will do now is move Snowstorm, Sommerfield and Maddie into the small shelter (the "boy" barn). Many farms do separate the maiden females from the maternity ones. Sancha is due mid-April and I think Sancha would like some distance from the younger girls. Sommerfield appears very attached to her mom. She follows her around, and has tried to nurse. Sancha will spit her off though. Maddie at times follows Sancha around too, like she's her surogate mother. I can already see Sommerfield being a milk snatcher. And I worry if Sancha's cria is not strong from the start those 2 girls could push it around. So why risk that chance? We have the space to separate the 2 younger girls, where they will share a fence with the older girls so they are not so far away. We plan to make that change this weekend. Friday the vet comes for a visit so we were waiting until that is over. I will be gone for 2 weeks and it would be easier for J if the pregnant girls were together apart from the others so he can do a quick morning feeding of just the pregnant ones. We have openned up the fence to the new barn and pasture. I have been feeding the girls in that area, and I started a poop pile (I took a small scoop from the other pile and put it where I wanted it in the new area ;) ). I think this will be a fairly easy transition, but we will wait and see for sure.

We will be getting Maddie's blood drawn when the vet is here so that we can finalize her registation. We really want to show her, and while we would have loved to do so this spring, fall will have to do.

Theories

The predominent theory on what happened with Remington came from the previous owners in discussion with the vet who did the necropsy at Michigan State. The theory is that Remington at one point had an open wound on him. This is a likely senario given he had just been moved to a different farm, and being the new male he was low man in the pecking order. Males do fight and he could have gotten a wound. If he then rolled in infected feces, then the coccidia could have gotten into the wound, entered the blood stream and then the abdominal cavity. While this is not a common thing to happen (open wound and infected feces and happen to roll in it) it is plausible.

However it came about I can only imagine how painful it must have been for him to be so infected. It points to how stoic these animals really are and how important it is know your alpacas and to watch for any unusual behavior. Since he was not on our farm yet I cannot look back and try to pick out unusual behavior. I do not know if in retrospect there were signs. It is scary how this could happen and makes me more cautious with watching the behaviors of the ones on our farm.

Necropsy

We have the preliminary report from Michigan State University. The short version is that Remington was too sick to travel. He reportedly had abcesses in his lung and liver and mesentery (the covering of the intestines). In addition to fluid in his abdominal cavity. He tested positive to Coccidial Oocysts. The type of coccidia appeared to be Eimeria Puneonesis. They took additional tissue for culture, those results are not available yet.

I did some research on Coccidail Oocysts. More information can be found at: http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_coccidia.html
It is a single cell organism that works similar to worms but is not a worm. The cell takes home in the intestines where it releases sporozoites and multiplies in the intestinal cells. This then causes intestinal problems in the animal including diarrhea and possibly bloody stool. Often small animals become dehydrated. It is passes through fecal matter from an infected animal.

There are several different strains of Coccidia. The report indicates this one to be Eimeria punoensis. I could not find much information on the web about this strain in alpacas specifically. Though I did find an older post on alpaca nation regarding this:

http://www.alpacanation.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3237

“The type of coccidia alpacas get is eimeria. There are different strains of eimeria, stiedai, stizostedioni, punoensis, macusaniensis and a bunch of others.
E-mac is used because none of us can spell eimeria macusaniensis.
If a vet told any client that their alpaca had eimeria punoensis the owner would be certain it was fatal, so the vet will say coccidia.”

I tried to post a scanned version of the nescrospy report here but it was not the right kind of file to upload here (I am not computer literate enough, sorry!). I can type in part of the report. Though I will warn you it is medical in nature and I had to have J translate a lot of it for me (so much for all those anatomy classes I took).

Gross Description

The body of a 2.5 year old, 65.5 kg, intact, male, Alpaca of adequate nutritional and hydration states was examined. Autolysis was minimal to mild. The lungs were bilaterally and diffusely dark red to purple, wet and heavy. The left lung lobe had areas of linear, pale, tan, mottling throughout. The right lung lobe appeared most affected, with long dense strands of fibrin over the pleural surface. Also, multiple firm nodules were palpated throughout the parenchyma of the left lobe. On cut sections, the nodules had a dense pale tan fibrous capsule contained clotted blood, necrotic debris, and purulent material. These changes were not observed in the lesser affected left lung lobe. The mediastinal lymph node was markedly enlarged. The abdominal cavity contained approximately 1 liter of hazy, watery, red tinged, fluid. The liver had approximately 10-20, variably sized, transparent, fluctuant, and pedunculated structures that were attached to the capsular surface. On cut section, the structures contained dark brown to green necrotic debris and small amounts of pale yellow to white granular purulent material. The mesentery contained approximately 5-10 random, dark brown to black nodules, surrounded by dense fibrous tissue and filled with purulent material (similar to that observed in the lung and on the capsular surface of the liver). There were no other significant gross findings observed.

Gross Diagnosis

Lung: Severe (unilateral) fibrinous pleuritis with multifocal chronic pulmonary abcess formation
Liver: Severe chronic diffuse capsulitis with multifocal abcess formation
Mesentery: Chronic multifocal mesentery abscess formation
Mediastinal lymph node: lymphadenomegaly

Comments:

The lung changes observed were severe and chronic and predominantly isolated to the right lung lobe. These findings (including the liver and mesentery) are most suggestive of a systemic bacteremia/septicemic process with multi organ seeding and subsequent abscess formation. These lesions, combined with the stress of transport, may account for this animal's sudden death. Histopathology and additional laboratory tests are currently in progress. The findings will be reported in a forthcoming final report as soon as results are available.

My own comments:
While some of that report sounds pretty bad, keep in mind that alpacas are very stoic animals. They do not let on that they are ill, until it is really bad. In nature they are very vulnerable because they have few defenses (run or spit is about all they can do, they can stomp small animals). To show a predator that they are weak or ill would be a huge weakness, so their natural instinct is to hide any illness or weakness. Remington was not at our farm so I do not know what signs he may or may not have been showing.

I also want to point out that this report points to a chronic problem. Remington had not been agisted at the farm he was at for very long. It is possible that he was infected before arriving there. Had they kept up on regular veterinary care, the extent of the coccidia in Remington was likely too advanced to be treated by regular dosing. It is hard to know when this started, when he was infected, and even if the coccidia was what caused the multi organ problems. The tissue cultures may show additional information to help sort it out.

We did call the farm we were purchasing Remington from to let them know the results of the report. And we have notified the farm where Remington was being agisted at because of concern that other alpacas could have been infected. One positive is that Remington never did touch ground at our farm. Given his condition, had he survived the transport he could have infected the rest of our herd.

Rest in Peace

With heavy heart I post the surprising death of Remington. I had only met him two times. The first time when we decided that we wanted to purchase him. The second time was to transport him to our farm. He appeared fine when we loaded him in the trailer, and was ok when we checked on him mid trip. But when we arrived at our farm, he was dead.

We were so looking forward to showing him this spring (we already had him signed up in two different shows). We had built a barn specifically with him in mind. We were planning to bred him to Victoria this summer. All these things we had prepared for him with anticipation of his arrival at our farm. While we didn't know him well, we were excited to have him at our farm, and are devastated at his loss. He will be greatly missed, and never forgotten.



J has taken the remains to Michigan State University for a necropsy (autopsy). There are so many questions as to how this could have happened,we need some answers. Whatever the reason, at the very least we can use this as a learning experience. For now we are just taking each moment by moment as we try to feel our way through this surprising loss.

Finger Puppets

I knit some finger puppet alpacas out of alpaca yarn (sorry the picture is blurry):


I bought this alpaca yarn. Once we have yarn from our own alpacas I will make the puppets out of that. I plan to give these away to kids who visit the farm.

Boy's barn

Our current project has been putting up a shelter for Remington, which Snowstorm will share with him. We opted to use a kit, the Liberty shed from Lowes. We decided that was the best option for something that we could put up in the winter, is moveable, and could be put up rather quickly. Right now we really want to get Remington to our farm. We plan to show him this spring and need to work on halter training.


Front view:


Back view:


Closer up in back:


As you can see the girls barn is much bigger, but it also has more storage area (for hay and straw and feed, in addition to a med station).

This shed will be plenty big for Snowstorm and Remington and can hold additional males should we have some born this year.

Trailer

Here is a picture of the trailer that we purchased to haul the alpacas. Isn't it cute! J put in vents so that they have air movement. I need to get a picture of the inside of it yet. We transported Sancha, Sommerfield and Maddie with plenty of room to spare. I do not think we will have a problem with it being too small. We likely could fit in all 7 of our alpacas.

We got a scale and alpaca weights

Given vet scales and easily cost $600+ we were not eager to go out and spend that money, we didn't get a scale right away. But now that we have alpacas that are under a year old we do need to monitor their weight. And it won't be long until we have some cria who will need to be weighed.

So Saturday we set up the scale and put the alpacas on it. They do not like to be haltered! J was the lucky one to catch and halter them then pull them to the scale. I stood behind the alpacas and pushed their back hips into the scale.

Maddie weighed in at 66 pounds. She's 4.5 months old and appears to be a good weight for her size. She has a good spine score so she's a perfect weight for her frame.

Sommerfield weighed in at 88 pounds, which appears right on for her body frame (her spine feels like a 3). She's pretty big for her age, given that breeding is usually done when they hit 90 pounds, and she's almost there. We plan to wait until late summer to early fall to breed her. But she will be plenty big by then, and will be around 18 months old (most start breeding between 15 and 18 months depending on the alpaca, the bigger ones earlier as they are ready earlier). Also we noted when Sommerfield first came to our farm she was showing herself to all the alpacas (she didn't know if they were males or not). At less than a year she was already presenting as ready to breed. In the wild some male would have tried! But we don't have any able males near her so we will wait a bit.

Sancha is a spitter and spitted a few times as J, but did eventually get on the scale. She weighed in at 190 pounds. We knew she was a bigger than average alpaca (average is supose to be 150 pounds) because she is taller and has a bigger frame than our other females. She seems to be a perfect weight as her score (spine score) is right on.

Snowstorm would not cooperate and after much struggling we gave up. I would have predicted he was over 200 pounds (before we got the scale). But looking at him next to Sancha, I bet they are very close in weight (though that can be deceptive, as we will see with the later weigh ins). He is overweight as his body score was a 5 to start, is slowing going to a 4.

Victoria was a suprise, she looks big but I think it's more due to her very dense and long fiber. She weighed in at 142.6 pounds. I fully expected her to be above the 150 (thinking 170-180). We were off on her! She is a bit on the heavy side for her frame as her spine score is a bit higher than the 3 it should be.

Kateria, who we thought was so much smaller than Victoria weighed in at 142.8! They are almost the exact same weight. I'll have to see if I can get a picture of them together, because I swear Victoria looks heavier.

Pictures!

We borrowed a camera to get some pictures on this blog. I want to share my babies :)


The first time we met Maddie she was trying to hide between the other alpacas. She had no idea she was black and they are white and she was not hidden at all :)


Here Maddie is eating a leave, the silly goof. Oak leaves can be toxic to alpacas but only in huge qualtities, this one leaf will not hurt her.


I love the markings on her face, shows off her eyes.



This is Remington. He's a 1/2 brother to Maddie, and I do think their faces look a lot alike. Remington is not yet at our farm, we need to finish a shelter for him first. This picture was taken when we visited him at Autumn Alpacas (he belonged to KaSar farms but was agisting at Autumn Alpacas). We are excited to get him here soon.



Sommerfield is 9 months old. She looks a little bit chunky, but that is all fiber! Having been born in the spring she was not shorn so she has a bit more growth than the others. Sommerfield's fiber is nice and thick and has good crimp. We are waiting to see how her top knot fills in, but we do see a lot of cheek wool. Sommerfield seems to like the dirt (like Snowstorm - why is it always the white ones who like the dirt!). So she is a bit dirty, but inside the fiber it's nice and clean and white. Sommerfield is in the middle of a growth spurt so her back legs are longer than her front legs. As she grows that will even out. Her mom, Sancha has a very straight flat back, which we expect Sommerfield will have when she's done growing.



What a cute face! You can really see the cheek wool here.



This is Sancha. She is the oldest alpaca that we have, and seems to be leader of the pack (though sometimes shares that job with Victoria). We are very excited that she's been bred to Avatar and will be delivering our first cria in mid-April. Since both dam and sire are white we are expecting a white cria, but you never know. I think she looks pregnant but some say you can't tell until about a month before they are due. I'm predicting a girl, she seems to be carrying high in her ribs (just a wild guess).


I love this picture of Snowstorm, it really shows off his "smile". Funny thing about him is that he's been the easiest for me to manage. When he first came here he was so big, and with only 3 alpacas, he often gave me trouble (stealing food from the others ect). But now that we added in most alpacas, Snowstorm is the best behaved. He herds where I want him to go. He waits his turn. He's awesome.


Our farm kitties, Fluffy and Thunder, hanging out in the hay.

Farm Visit - Pictures!

I finally got the pictures that we took from a farm visit we had in December. My neice had a birthday party and all the kids came over to see the alpacas. They fed them carrots. Most of the girls wanted to feed the alpacas, some were hesitant at first, but then when they saw the others doing it, they wanted to too.

Sommerfield

We got a hold of Sommerfield last night to check her fiber. I was happy to feel that she is not overweight, she just has a lot of fiber on her. Her fiber was thick and had crimp. It will be interesting to see how to does in shows this spring.

Very cold weekend

The temps this weekend are in the single digits with wind chills below 0*F. Very cold! We put out some more straw for the alpacas. Fed them a little bit extra grain, and made sure they have plenty of hay to eat. When we went to check on them this morning they seemed to be doing fine. Suposedly alpacas are supose to do fine in the cold, their fiber keeping them warm. It's heat that is rough on them. But the cold is miserable to me and I can't help but worry how they are doing.

pronking

I had read about pronking but I must not have really understood what it was. I was picturing young alpaca dancing in the pasture as "pronking". This morning it turns out I saw pronking. I fed the alpacas and when I got back I mentioned to J that while the pregnant alpacas were eating, Sommerfield started bucking. I thought she was really mad that they were eating and she wasn't (Maddie was humming very sadly and Snowstorm was giving me a look). J said "that's pronking." Oh! Now I get it.

Maddie

Turns out Maddie is older than we thought. Somehow J and I thought she was born in October. We were puzzled that she was old and big enough to wean given an October birthdate. Well she was born September 2nd, so definately old enough to wean. Now it makes sense why she is almost the same size as Sommerfield. They are about 5 months apart in age.

Maddie has become rather friendly. She is a curious alpaca. Well, all apacas are curious and given the chance they want to watch what you are doing. But I've found some are the first to come check out what you are doing, and some are the ones who stand in the back of the group to watch. Victoria has always been the first one, we often call her "nosey". Kateri is one that is more likely to stand in the back. Now it seems Maddie is even faster than Victoria in coming to see what I'm doing. Maddie has also let Emma pet her. She seems to be ok with people coming near her. However, I have a lot of difficulty herding Maddie, she doesn't seem to see the need to move.

Sancha, on the other hand, is very quick to move, but jumps and moves so fast she never goes where I was directing her. She loves food, at lot like Victoria who will eat as much as they can get, even spitting at other alpacas to get more food.