Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Today's Ranch Visit

Today we had a group of seniors visit from an assisted living center in Kent.  We've had several of these kind of group tours and it is always fun to see the smiles and how fascinated they are with alpacas.  With lots of moms and cria to see there is no end to the oohs and ahhs.

All the moms were very cooperative in showing off their beautiful
new cria~

This is Moonshadow's October Sky and her new cria saying hi to everyone~

Sky is teaching them all about alpacas~
 Everyone had a good time.  Some got off the van a little apprehensive about what we were going to show them at the barn.  Once the alpacas showed up and started interacting their faces lit up and the feeling seemed unanimous it was well worth the trip.  We had lots of questions and lots of comments on how new alpacas were to many of them.  The woman in yellow thought the alpacas were so fascinating and encouraged us to invite more people out and share what alpacas are all about.  We will certainly continue to follow her advice!

Monday, June 27, 2011

June's Six Pack

So you just never know with alpaca due dates, but this year we had 6 due in June and we actually ended up with a 6 pack of new cria in June.  Final count 4 boys and 2 girls.  We ranged in gestation days from 336 to 363 days, Deb was home for every birth, I actually got to see 3.  Overall, 2 of those seemed to be ones I needed to be here to give Deb an extra set of hands to assist.  The 3rd one was a perfect, text book delivery with one of our great proven dams, Moonshadow's Obsession.

Here is MO with her new cria Monique,
just hours old~

Monique is MO's 3rd cria in the "MO" line, she is
very exotic looking with those eyes~
Saturday, Moonshadow's October Sky, gave birth to her first cria.  Sometimes those first births can be difficult or have certain challenges.  Sky had trouble getting the cria out and needed our assistance.  Which often then is hard on the newborn and they start out a little slow.  Sometimes first time moms don't have any or little milk and are not too sure about the whole nursing routine.  Sky was being very attentive to her new cria the first day, but she wasn't letting him nurse, so we had to supplement.  First 24 hours for this guy were touch and go, by Saturday evening we thought he was crashing.  So we checked on him and tube fed him every few hours throughout the night.  By morning, we were not out of the woods, but a very positive sign was seeing him up and nursing!  As the morning progressed, he appeared to be moving around more and Sky was standing perfectly for him to nurse. 

Sky was being a great mom in all the protective and nurturing ways
we expect alpaca moms to be~
Sunday was a warm sunny day, great for newborns to soak up the vitamin D and gain strength.  This little guy was still pretty sedentary and got a little over heated so was not up and nursing as often as he should.  So by Sunday evening, it seemed our upswing of the morning had headed back down again.  So we went through another night of supplementing his feed to keep what strength he had up.  Starting his 3rd day now and things are looking good again.  He put a little weight back on that he had lost the day before and seems to be working at mom to nurse more often.  To assess the health and progress of a new cria, we will weigh them ever day to ensure they are gaining, if we have an at risk cria we will weigh twice a day.  A thriving cria is also easy to guage just through observation of their energy and strength in getting up, running and keeping it with mom.
This guy is so adorable and just has an amazing amount of
bright silky soft fleece~
The outcome for one of our youngest is looking promising.  As for the rest of June's cria, they are all thriving and tearing around the fields playing.  It is so much fun to have all the new cria together and watching them interact.  Now we have a little break before the next group of cria are due to arrive.  Next wave of cria watch begins the end of July.   

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

How Quickly They Grow up

Any of us who have raised kids or watched them grow up knows how fast they do grow up.  With alpaca cria it seems just exponentially quicker.  They are trying to stand and nurse almost immediately after they are born and are generally standing, walking, nursing and keeping up with mom within their first 45 minutes of life.

Within moments after they are born a newborn cria will
be sitting up right.
 Since shearing, the most exciting events on the ranch have definitely been the arrival of new cria.  Monday we had our 4th of the year, a beautiful female out of SHRA Zephyr and Snowmass Golden Victory.  After 3 boys in a row, we were definitely excited to have a girl!  Also, this has been a greatly anticipated cria since Zephyr was the last alpaca we purchased to infuse some new genetics into our breeding program.  Adding a female with her production record to our program and combining with Golden Victory was a very calculated move to produce something special.  We have waited almost 2 years to see the first results of that plan.  First step finally accomplished, cria on the ground.

About 15 minutes old
Zephyr's cria was born Monday morning, a rather cool and cloudy day.  It is always to a newborn's advantage to have a nice, sunny, moderately warm day to start life outside the womb, but clearly they don't get to choose.  We were both there to witness the entire labor and delivery....not so unusual for Deb, she stays close to home during cria watches, but seems like I miss most of the births anymore still having a job away from the ranch.  I love being there for those first steps, watching the moms be so encouraging and watching the newborn so quickly kick into survival mode of being mobile and finding nourishment.  After lots of towelling to dry her off and warm her up, she was fighting to get up on her feet and stand. 

 
Things start out a little wobbly on those long legs!
Alpaca moms are very protective and rarely will leave the side of their newborn cria.  They hum to them encouragingly and are very protective.  Zephyr was one of those extremely protective moms who really did not like us too close to her cria at all and worked very hard at letting us know she had everything handled!  If we weren't home a healthy thriving cria doesn't need our assistance.  Since we are there, it's hard to resist the urge to help a new cria get those long legs underneath them and stabilized to take those first steps.  Those first steps are usually aimed towards finding the milk wagon and re-nourish that spent energy it takes getting this far in life.  Watching how quickly this all transpires compared to other species, and even humans, is truly amazing.
Zephyr and her new little girl~
Everyone always wants to great the new little cria.  Zephyr doesn't necessarily
look happy about having to share her newborn, but it is the alpaca way~
After just 2 days Zephyr's cria is out and about with the rest of the group.  She has "fluffed" up and we can see and feel a little more what her fiber is like.  As far as looks wise, she is gorgeous!  She still stays very close to her mom, even though the other cria want her to join in their games.  She will be running and tearing around with them soon enough in the next day or two.

This is about as close as they are most of the time

Even when it's time for a nap, Zephyr grazes nearby
to keep watch.
And we're out~



Sunday, June 19, 2011

New Arrivals

We've been waiting with great anticipation for the first cria of 2011 to arrive.  They're finally here!  At least the first few.  So if you've been following and read any of the Due Soonests or Who'll Go First blog posts you know a few of the moms we've been waiting on.  Knock Out  delivered first on Tuesday, June 14th and then apparently inspired one of our maidens, Moonshadow's Late Nite Out, to deliver also.
Knock Out's new cria, a very bright white handsome boy~
Late Nite Out's new cria, a cute fawn boy~
People are always asking us how we come up with names for all the new cria, we have had around 90 cria born since we started with our first 5 pregnant females.  Sometimes it is amazingly easy and a name just pops and suits them.  Sometimes it is more challenging, we have some themes we use, sometimes we like to incorporate the name of the Sire or Dam, some times it's just kind of random or from something significant that happened in the beginning of the cria's life.  So to explain Late Nite Out, which my son came up with, she was the first cria we ever had born after dark.  She is just under 3 years old, so at the time we had still had a lot of babies born within common parameters.  Statistically, close to 90% of cria will be born between 6 am and 2 pm, and for us this has pretty much held true.  Just felt the need to clarify she was not a party girl staying out late that earned her the name.  ;-)

To follow up the excitement of the two new cria on Tuesday, Moonshadow's Evening Staar went into labor on Wednesday and delivered her cria.  So going back to the 2 blog posts talking about our impending new cria I highlighted 4 of the 6 moms that were due this month.  I won't admit that was intended as a guess in who would deliver first, we know they stick to their own schedule.  A couple of the other moms we are waiting on are now over 350 days pregnant!
Here is Evening Staar with her new white, extremely dense fleeced little boy~
Evening Staar's boy and Knock Out's boy are half brothers from our Herdsire, Snowmass Golden Victory
We love seeing the babies begin to arrive after months of waiting to see what the pairing of Sire and Dam produces.  Color is often a surprise, but our primary focus is on high quality fiber regardless of the color.  Some ranches specialize in particular colors, we truly love them all and appreciate having a range of colored fleeces.  Have to admit we generally would prefer girls over boys, but producing boys with stud potential is always a top consideration in selecting breeding pairs.  In the end, we are always thrilled to have easy deliveries, good moms with plenty of milk and motherly instincts and strong healthy cria.  New cria arrivals is definitely one of the most exciting times of the year!

To see more photos of the new cria, check out our Flickr set on 2011 Cria.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Shearing is done

Waiting and watching.....
With the crazy weather we've had this spring it seemed really okay to have a late shearing date set.  Then all the sudden it seemed like the weather was changing and we had all these full fleeced, miserably hot alpacas with a week of warmer weather and high humidity.  Then the week before shearing the weather changed again and we were watching the forecast every day hoping to not be rained out!  Saturday morning was cloudy and overcast threatening of rain, in the end we may have gotten a little misting, but nothing to stop our plans and then Sunday was warm and beautiful to finish things up. 

First passes with the shears to take off the blanket

Blanket shorn off, our blanket fleeces typically weigh 3-5 pounds of prime fleece
 
The hand off to roll over and shear the other side

This is one of our rather pregnant females.  She is taken down gently in the ropes onto soft foam mats.  With a pillow for her head, most alpacas handle this method of shearing rather stress free.

This is a good shot to see one half of the blanket shorn off, you get a good idea of how long of a staple length they grow in a year.

By shearing time our white alpacas just don't look so clean after a long winter.  It never ceases to amaze me how bright white they are underneath.  You can also see in the unshorn fleece side the "dirt line" showing the dirt you see on the outside from getting in mud and sand really doesn't penetrate their dense blankets very deep.
Outside of the hard work and sense of accomplishment at harvest time, I love shearing!  It is the best time to really get your hands all over the animals for a thorough check up, get a good toenail trim done and see what beautiful fleece they have all produced.  Not that we don't do some of this throughout the year, there is just a big difference in holding an alpaca still on your own to do these things as opposed to having them secured down in shearing ropes.

Every year we shear I am still amazed how different the alpacas look after they get all that fleece shorn off, they look so much like they've shrunk.  As we bring in groups of alpacas for their turn getting a hair cut, the others watch with great curiousity and maybe a little anticipation.  Then as each one goes back in with the group they are greated as a total stranger who has to be thoroughly checked out and I believe, even teased a bit.  It is always entertaining and fascinating watching the alpacas interact as anything new or unusual happens within their routine.

The alpacas are definitely happy to have those big alpaca coats off.  We are happy to have shearing done.  Next it is deciding what to do with all that fiber!
 
Moonshadow's Symphony displaying her new haircut.

Moonshadow's Special T getting her final touches on her new haircut.


Friday, June 3, 2011

Meet The Killdeer

We have had some resident Killdeer here at our ranch that every year we try to protect their nests from their own poor planning.  For anyone who doesn't know about Killdeer, they build their nests in the ground at risk from being trampled by animals and too easily accessible to predators.
 
Killdeer
Every morning when I left for work a Killdeer was carrying on as they do in front of my car so we knew there must be a nest nearby.  So last weekend we went looking for it around the driveway and found it in a very precarious spot in the gravel in the middle of the driveway.  Amazing I hadn't driven over it!
To protect their nests Killdeer will try to draw any prey away from the eggs by skuawking, carrying on, running away from the nest and acting like they are wounded.
 
Killdeer guarding nest
  
Killdeer broken wing routine
 Both parents work to take care of the nest and ward off any predators.   
Killdeer parents drawing attention away from the nest
We've tried many things over the years finding their nests in dangerous spots to try to help them survive.  When they build them in the paddocks with the alpacas we have put stakes around them so they are not accidently trampled.  With it in the middle of our driveway this year we have put a big rock by it so we don't accidently drive over it.  You can see in the pictures the Killdeer blend into the environment very well.  So do their eggs, especially when they are laying in gravel.
 
Killdeer on nest next to protective rock
 
Killdeer eggs blending very well in the gravel
 Four eggs is usually the max.  When we discovered the nest there was only one, making us feel pretty good we discovered it before it got crushed by a vehicle coming in or out.  Then we watched them accumulate 1 egg per day.  Now we wait for the hatchlings.  Stay tuned....
Killdeer wanting us to follow and stay away from those precious eggs!