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!