Herdsires

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!

Today I skirted a fleece from a male that arrived at our farm on Saturday.  Starry’s Rastban is his name and he’s a light fawn herdsire owned by Starry Mountain Alpacas and boarded at our farm.  And he’s for sale!  Anyways, his fleece is fabulous – dense and fine with crimp that has high amplitude and high frequency.  I love skirting the nicer fleeces!  I think I’ll plan to show this one. Unless he sells before the fall shows – then his new owner can show it!

Our fellow alpaca breeder, Karen, from Moonacre Farm, picked up our champion white male, Snowshoe Aristides, early this morning to take him to the MAPACA Eastern Alpaca Jubilee in Harrisburg, PA.  Ron is too busy shearing this time of year to travel to a show, so Karen will show Ari this weekend and next.  Those will be his last two shows of the season and then he will stay on the farm and start his breeding career.

Breedings to Aristides are sold out for 2010, but we have several females who are offered for sale with breedings to Ari. Check our sales list !

We had a scare last night with one of our prized herdsires, Nibblewise.  Just before 7pm, Ron noticed Nibbles was cushed and groaning and salivating.  He was obviously in pain.  Our first thoughts, of course, were “worst case”: intestinal torsion or impaction or something like that.  Our wonderful vet was out within the hour, checked him over and administered banamine and bute. All his vitals were good and pressing on his belly didn’t seem to cause pain. All good signs.

We got up twice during the night to give injections and he seemed better each time. So far this morning Nibbles seems fine. It appears this might have been some sort of GI upset that corrected itself. We’ll keep a close eye on him today as any lingering effects of the medications wear off.

Over the years, we’ve been very lucky to have experienced few events of this nature. But you never know when something might happen and it reminds me why I like to stick close to home. And how much we value having a good vet nearby!

We’re busy this morning with last-minutes preparations for our first show of the season, the North American Alpaca Show, which is held in Springfield, MA at the Eastern States Exposition. Ron will be showing our champion white male, Snowshoe Aristides. After several days of rain, Aristides is not looking his best.  But the forecast for the weekend is good and whites are shown towards the end, so he will have time to dry off and clean up.

The show is open to the public and will be running all day tomorrow and Saturday.  Stop by and say hi!

There’s nothing more depressing in mid-winter than a warm rain.  The 40+ degree weather and heavy rain yesterday took us down to bare ground in all our paths and drives, but the unplowed ground is still white. Temps are below freezing this morning, so our fields are all ice.  No snowshoeing with the dogs until we get a good snowfall.

Ron headed out to Barre to the Vermont Farm Show this morning.  He took a couple of male alpacas, including our white male color champion, Snowshoe Aristides.  They’ll be meeting and greeting people at the Vermont Llama & Alpaca Assoc display all day. Stop by and say hi if you’re in the area!

Registration for the North American Alpaca Show opened this morning.  Spring is on the way! We’ll reserve our pens today for the two males we’ll be showing: our white multi-champion, Snowshoe Aristides, and our juvie male, Snowshoe Pharoah. We’ll also reserve space for a suri male, Christopher, owned by our friend Jane at Berry Hill Farm.

The spring shows will be Aristides’ last chance in the ring then he will retire to start his breeding career in May.  We already have dates lined up for him!

It can be very convenient to have your own herdsires at your farm for breeding.  And most of the time, the males aren’t much of a problem.  But every so often they get to fighting. Like tonight.  One male was taken away to do a breeding at another farm and the three that were left are chasing each other around and screaming bloody murder.  Alpacas are generally very quiet, but they can make quite a bit of noise when they want too!

We very pleased to announce that four outstanding males from New Millennium Alpaca Farm are now boarded at Snowshoe Farm.  All four males are for sale and, in the meantime, are available for breeding. 

The four males include the well known Jedi Knight, sire of champions, B Dylan whose first cria – a beautiful female – was born here a couple weeks ago, Royal Chocolate Fudge  and Big Bad John, an unproven Jedi Knight son.  As an added bonus, these fine males are offered as part of our 10th anniversary celebration at the low cost of $1200 (or $1000 for mulitple breedings).  This offer includes drive-by and mobile breedings.

If you’re looking for a low cost, high quality outside breeding to bring excellent genetics to your herd – this is it! Check our website for more info about these males.  Or contact us to schedule a breeding.