Crias

The last of the crias owned by Snowshoe Farm was born on Sunday.  Our final count is nine boys for nine crias.  Overall, we’ve had 22 crias born so far on the farm this summer and only 5 of them have been girls.  Three more crias are due soon.  We do, however, have a few very promising boys out of the group, including the full brother of our champion male, Snowshoe Aristides.

Here’s a photo of our last cria, a very nice looking white male out of Snowshoe Star, a Super Nova daughter, and sired by NM Big Bad John, a Jedi Knight son. He doesn’t have a name yet – any suggestions??

This is Wizard’s first shearing, but also he was the 1000th alpaca to be shorn this year by me (Ron)!

Before

After

After 11 years of raising alpacas, we finally have a bottle baby.  And no – it’s not a good thing.  Alpaca crias can become bottle babies for any number of reasons – mother’s lack of milk, loss of mother, etc. This happens to be an orphan. This cria, Phylicia, was just over a week old when her mother died. We’re happy that Phylicia at least was able to nurse off her mother long enough to get the colostrum and the immunities it will provide. But suddenly we were faced with a very young cria who needed to be hand fed. She has been trying to nurse off the other mothers in her pen, but with no luck.  It’s very sad to see her getting kicked and pushed away when she tries to nurse!

Alpaca crias are notoriously difficult to bottle feed – they don’t generally take to the rubber nipple easily – and Phylicia was no exception; she sat with the bottle in her mouth, but didn’t drink.  We finally used a syringe to feed her and she drank that right down.We figured that was a good way to get her used to the taste.

Sonya – the owner of Phylicia’s mother – brought up several gallons of fresh goat milk which is perfect for feeding to a cria. Finally – after a few sessions with the syringe – Phylicia started to suck on her bottle. She’s more active today and seems to be doing OK. She’s taking the bottle more readily, drinking down what she needs, then jumping up to go back into her pen. For now, that’s great. We’ll see how soon she becomes more independent.  We’ll keep you posted…

Thanks you to all who helped with Phylicia this weekend – Ellie & Lisa, Annette and Larry and of course, Sonya who is providing her with fresh milk!

Annette feeding Phylicia

The last couple weeks have been pretty hectic here at Snowshoe Farm. First, we prepared for our Mid-Summer Sale and our efforts were worth it.  We had beautiful weather and a good number of visitors. A number of alpacas were sold and will soon be going to new homes. Thank you to all who visited and to our friend, Doug, for all his help with getting the farm cleaned up early each morning that weekend!

We’re happy to announce the winners of our drawing for free breedings: Foggy Bottom Ranch won the breeding to Nibblewise of Elfenwood. Many thanks to our co-owners at Elfenwood Alpacas for letting us give away a breeding. Stonewall Fields Alpacas won the breeding to our champion white male, Snowshoe Aristides.

Our niece and nephew visit last week and we put them right to work.  We had 4 crias born over the weekend and put over 600 bales of hay in the mow.  They were soooo much help!  Now we’re faced with putting in the rest of our hay with just the two of us – we’re spoiled!

Last night was a late night with a dystocia that ended up with a cria born at 11:30pm.  A dystocia is when you have to assist with the birth. This cria had it’s front legs bent and the vet was called out late on a Saturday night to fix the problem. Large animal vets are amazing!  We are so lucky to have access to good vets who are willing to come any time. Our friends Tracey and Kathy from Foggy Bottom Ranch came and helped hold the dam and give moral support. Thank you!! In the end, the cria was pulled and was up and nursing in less than an hour.  The dam, I’m sure, was sore, but she is a great mother and all is well with the pair.

Our newest herdsire and white male Color Champion, Snowshoe Aristides, has settled his first females!  We had two positive ultrasounds last week and have at least a couple more females that have been bred and are continuing to spit.  For those of you who are not familiar with breeding alpacas, “spitting” means the female has been bred and is rejecting any additional breeding because she is pregnant – at least that’s how it works in theory. Our vet can perform an ultrasound at about 21 days to confirm a pregnancy. So we hope to have a few more confirmed in the next couple weeks!

We sold out Aristides’ breedings for 2010, so are thrilled that he’s doing his job!

This male cria was born on Saturday to Mia, a female who is owned by Starry Mountain Alpacas and boarded at Snowshoe Farm.  The not-so-little guy weighed almost 20 lbs and was standing and nursing 45 minutes after hitting the ground!  Now that’s what we call an easy birth… ten down, 16 more to go.

Mia is for sale with this cria and with a free rebreeding! 

Our newest cria was born yesterday morning. We’re not sure yet if this young male is fawn or rose gray.  His grandsire is gray and he does have a gray tint to his fiber. We’ll see how it looks over the next few weeks. The gray fibers seem to grow out gradually.  Anyway, the little guy is out running with the others this morning.  His dam is a first-time mother and she’s doing great.

Interesting mix of genetics in this boy – Nishio, Magic, Legacy…could turn out to be quite interesting, especially if he is rose gray!

Spring is a very busy time on the farm for many reasons, but mainly because Ron is busy shearing at other farms every day. Now that shearing is winding down, we are starting to catch up on all we let slide for the last few months…like posting to our blog. I’ll do better from now on!

We’ve had 8 crias born on the farm so far this year and lots more to go.  I’ll post some updated cria photos soon – promise!

After three boys, we finally had a female cria born yesterday. This girl belongs to our client, Nu Leafe Alpacas, from Calais, VT. She’s a beautiful, light fawn cria with lots of energy!  I couldn’t keep up with her yesterday; she was up and nursing in no time and wandered all over the pasture. Just what we like to see!

BC, a female alpaca owned by a client, gave birth to a fawn male yesterday. This was another easy birth with a vigorous cria who was up and nursing in no time.  Makes my job a lot easier!  It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day for a cria to be born out in the pasture.

We now have three boys on the ground (please, let’s have some girls now!). And they are so much fun to watch as they run and wrestle.