Sunday, May 29, 2011

Spring Fling Alpaca Style

Here in the NW it's been hard to tell it's actually spring much of the time.  When the sun comes out it has been glorious and the grass and plants and weeds grow like crazy with no lack of water.  Looking at the calendar is our real reminder that it is truly spring.  Cria watch is in full attention mode for every little twitch our due soons make.  Planning for this year's breeding line up goes hand in hand with the cria watch.  So not wanting to get such a late start for new cria next year and having a weekend of dry weather predicted, we did our final review of our pairings.  For those that don't know, it's not really about likability towards each other for the alpacas, we go through a rather rigorous selection process to put together the best combination of qualities to produce our desired goal of significant improvement in the next generation.

With our decisions made we head out to round up the boys, somehow they know the words "want a date?" and stand perfectly still for us to put a halter on them and walk them over to meet the girls.  Ideally, we have a separate area for them to have a little privacy away from the big group when they breeding, but it is spring in the NW and pasture conditions are far from ideal from the endless amount of rain it seems we have had for months!  So the advantage of breeding in the pasture with all the girls around is to see who else is receptive, get some spit checks done to verify those we expected to be pregnant in the fall held over winter and help the young first timers get an idea of what is supposed to be happening.  The down side to this is it can be incredibly chaotic!  Especially if you are the one supposed to be helping, but would rather take pictures of all the theatrics and acrobatics.  :-)
 
A good alpaca Herdsire, not distracted from his mission assuring the other girls they'll get their turn!
 This would have been far more entertaining for the reader if we had been able to video all the antics going on, but in the end we got 3 breedings accomplished out of the 9 open females we have waiting.  

The girls weren't all ready for Fury to go back to his paddock yet or were helping to escort him out?
 And so it begins for 2011 in our cycle of pregnancies and deliveries.  We are always excited about impending cria, since it is close to a year we are waiting on results of decisions we made in pairing them.  Then we are looking ahead to what the next crop holds.  It is constant learning, anticipation, reviewing and moving forward.  Never a dull day living with alpacas!

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Who'll Go First...

As cria watch continues, we are seeing signs of impending moms and thinking they are getting close.  However, over the years we have learned alpaca moms can be very sneaky and seem to prefer having their cria when you aren't looking.  Then there is the gestation period, we estimate due dates at 340 days, but have had a range from around 310 days to 370!  We have even tried to look for trends in individual moms we've had for a long time, but even if we think we see one, she'll prove us wrong with the next birth.  We have gone to the barn to check on a due soon mom, seen no suspecting signs and then turn around a half hour later and there she is with her new cria.  So we watch and we wait and we continue to anticipate and speculate.....who'll go first this year?

We have 6 that are due within days and weeks of each other.  Here are a couple others that could be due any day or any week now:


SHRA Zephyr
 This is Zephyr, we purchased her from a ranch in Ohio in 2009, she arrived here in October of that year so we chose not to breed her that late in the year and waited till the following spring.  So we have been waiting a long time to get this cria from Zephyr and can't wait to see what she produces.  She is bred to Snowmass Golden Victory and we have no doubt this cria will be heavily covered in beautiful fleece.  Zephyr has an amazing track record of gorgeous offspring to include a pretty amazing high end Herdsire, CAR Supernova's Quattro.  At this point, I have my money on Zephyr having the first cria of the year.....we'll see.

Moonshadow's Obsession (MO)
Our MO, what a character and a fiber machine!  MO has always been one of our favorites since she was born here.  This will be her 3rd cria and her first 2 were definitely as cute and full of personality as their mom.  We call this our MO line, so far we have had MOJO and MOJITA.  We are counting on the next one being Monique, named contributed by my son and we sure hope it is a girl!  MO is bred to APEX a magnificent Andrajo son owned by our good friend Kelli Cronn of Four Seasons Farm.  MO is one of the last due with this first group of due soons, but she sure is acting like she wants to be done with it.  These few days of warm spring weather she has not appreciated, but who would at 10 months pregnant with a huge, heavy, dark alpaca coat on?

Friday, May 13, 2011

Our due soonests....

We are anxiously anticipating our first cria of the year.  As we prepare here on the ranch, we wanted to take the opportunity to introduce our impending new moms to be:

Evander's Knock Out
Admittedly not one of my best alpaca photos, but Knock Out has always been a little camera shy.  Knock Out is bred to our premier Herd Sire, Snowmass Golden Victory.  Knock Out has produced some of our most beautiful alpacas to include one of our main marketing faces, Knock Out's Sugar N Spice, a beautiful multiple blue ribbon winning girl.  We held Knock Out open after her fall 2009 cria to get her on a more favorable breeding cycle, so we've been waiting a long time for this baby!  Serious cria watch begins for her on May 26th.  Things we love about Knock Out is her sweet disposition, the insane amount of fine fleece she has always produced and the adorable phenotype she consistently throws.  Expect this cria to be an adorable fiber blind fleece machine!

Next and right behind Knock Out is Moonshadow's October Sky.  They were both bred to Snowmass Golden Victory a day apart.  This will be Sky's first cria and 2nd maternal generation from our top original foundation dams, Madonna la Boliviana.

Moonshadow's October Sky
Sky has a blue ribbon winning, gorgeous fleece.  Her dam, Madonna, has consistently passed on a very soft handling fleece.  Madonna still at 11 years old produces a fleece when spun into yarn will be the first to sell out of our store.  All of her offspring have produced a high quality fleece that makes into our fastest selling yarns.  Sky's Sire is CCNF Andean Fury, he is still a major fleece producer after several years of breeding and passing on his outstanding qualities.  So waiting on Sky's cria is quite exciting too.  Not only are we excited to cross the Fury and Golden Victory lines, this should be an extraodinarily fleeced cria and will be the first offspring born at Moonshadow out of a Madonna daughter!  This may not sound like that big of a deal, but considering we purchased Madonna in 2002, this has been a long time coming!  Beyond all this, last year Madonna produced an offspring from Golden Victory we think is one of the best we've produced here.  How can you not get excited wondering what a step up from that will be like!

More introductions to come in our blog and updates on when the cria hit the ground.  It's hard not to be repetitive, but we are excited for different reasons for every cria due.  We carefully select each breeding pair and then wait so long to find out the results.  Oh the anticipation, stay tuned!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Lawn Mowing Moonshadow Style

Here in the great wet state of Washington mowing the lawn in the spring can be quite a challenge!  Our lawn loves all the rain, unfortunately too much of a good thing means the riding mower is going to sink like a rock.  Our girls stepped up to the challenge and took care of the knee high grass in just a few days. We're hoping that since we can now find the raised garden beds that planting some vegetables might be an option in the near future.  Please sun come out and play!

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all who are to 2 leggers or 4 leggers!  My son is currently serving in the Army in Iraq and I miss him.  My mom has been gone for several years and I miss her.  I love them both and have them with me always. To fill any nurturing void without them here, we have over 40 alpacas, 3 cats, 2 dogs and some hens, it is never a dull moment!  I love having all the animals and am always amazed at how they interact with each other and us 2 leggers who care for them.

One of my favorite things about raising alpacas is the new cria born every year.  We have had over 80 born here on our ranch now and it never gets old.  We can wait up to 12 months or more for a cria to be born, there is always so much anticipation waiting to find out whether it's a boy or a girl, what color, what's the fiber like.  Like all babies, it is a miracle of life to see one born, stand up for the first time and take steps to find it's mom and food source.  For anyone who has never seen an alpaca mom with their cria it is amazing.  Alpaca moms are very attentive, nurturing and protective of their cria.  There are just some great moments watching them together that I never get tired of seeing.  Here are a few of my favorite alpaca moms and cria photos.


For 2011 cria watch officially begins in a couple of weeks.  Yesterday we moved 6 of our due soonests to the barn area where we can keep the best watch on them and be close to supplies when the cria arrives.  We base our projected due dates on an average of 340 days gestation, but really start watching when they are getting close to the 11 month mark.  We have had cria born from around 310 days to 370!  Good times, stay tuned for impending cria announcements!