We spend a lot of time in the summer waiting for crias to be born. The length of an alpaca’s gestation is quite variable. We always assume 11 months as a “due date”, but we’ve seen gestations almost 3 weeks short of that and we’ve seen others over a year … Read More
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 … Read More
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. … Read More
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 … Read More
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 … Read More
Now this is more like it! This black male was born yesterday and was up and nursing within an hour or so. No worries! Today he’s running around the pastures. That’s his mother, Rosita, behind him. Over 20 crias to come this year!
Our first cria of 2010 was born prematurely last Tuesday. He needed support for the first few days, but finally seems to be nursing well on his own. I’ll watch him carefully during this week’s hot weather to be sure he doesn’t overheat and dehydrate. Several females are ready to … Read More
Weaning, in some ways, is one of the more difficult things we have to do here on the farm. Generally, we wean crias that are at least 6 months old and at a good weight for their age. We time weaning for late winter – when the temps are not quite … Read More
A new cria was born here yesterday. Penny Lane, owned by New Millennium, had her first cria, a male who will be named Lennon. He is small – just over 13 lbs, but spunky. He’s nursing well and Penny is being a good mother.