Cindy’s Alpaca Blog

A couple of weeks ago a tornado zigzagged its way through our property taking down about a dozen large trees and snapping several more off half way up.  It has created a real mess in the pastures and damaged our fences in several places.

We were very fortunate that only the fences were damaged.  Although several large limbs landed just a few feet away from the alpaca stalls no animals were hurt and the barn was unscathed.  We try to remind ourselves of this good news as we are chainsawing tree trunks and hauling loads of tree branches out of the pastures.

The animals were huddled in the barn that night, cushing very close to one another for protection.  But by the next day - they were unperturbed, even though there was still lots of standing water in their pastures.

The little ones thought it was quite fun to run at full speed through the ankle high water and splash each other - or try to jump on one another while wading through puddles.

Mother Nature is one of the big unpredictable factors of any kind of farm life.  I try to be thankful of her many moods instead of resentful.  Right now I’m thankful that we are still experiencing unseasonably cool weather for a Floridian late March.  It is still in the low 40’s every morning, and has not made it out of the low 70’s during the day yet.  The alpacas are very comfortable, even though they are in full fleece.  I will really appreciate the memory of these cool and comfortable mornings in June and July when the temperature soars to the 90’s during the day and the humidity is 80%.  Such is the life of a Florida farmer.

In the previous post I mentioned that we are offering five of our females for $5000.00 each.  You can see their pictures and read a description of each one in this post.  This is truly an outstanding deal, and to sweeten it even further, we will include one free herdsire if a buyer purchases two females, and two free herdsires if a buyer purchases three females.  New farms - here is your opportunity for a great herd start!

Lurissa is the Grand Dam of our farm.  She is a very experienced mother, who maintains a relationship with her offspring even after several years.  She herself is a champion, winning first place in the 1998 CABA show and 2nd place in the 1999 IOA show.  Her genetics are also outstanding, being a Fuego daughter, and sister to the famous Mahogany Prince (top selling male in 2003 at $325,000!).   You can purchase this stately dam for only $5000.00, and add these genetics to your farm:

Ripple is a very gentle and reliable dam who has produced several show quality cria.  Her 2009 cria just took home a red ribbon from the Florida Expo this year.  Ripple is bred to Shaka for an early spring 2011 cria.

Sadie Ann is a vivacious and sturdy female with very attractive coloring and super dense fleece.  She has already given birth to a ribbon winning fawn male and is bred to Shaka for a December 2010 birth.

Idlewyld is a beautiful white female sold with her 2009 cria Saladin.  Idlewyld has a prestigious genetic heritage and is a true darling on our farm.  She is bred to 1/2 Accoyo Diamond River’s Storm for  a January 2011 cria.

Midnight Serenade is still a maiden, and just look at those gorgeous black locks!  Midnight placed third at the Florida Expo as the youngest yearling in her division.  The judge commented on her excellent re-growth and high degree of luster.   Midnight is sold with a free breeding to any or our fully owned herdsires.

Check out the listings page on our webpage for more complete information on all of these females, including birthdates and ARI registration #’s.  If a buyer chooses two females, we will include one of the following herdsires at no extra charge:

Lakota                Heli Arc             Seigfried                  Wari

As you can see, all of these males are herdsire quality.  We are expecting Wari’s first cria in the next two or three weeks to be born on our farm.  All four of these males have earned 2nd-4th place ribbons at a variety of shows.

We brought home two new females in February from the Florida show.   Even though we go to the show auction with no intention of buying any animals, sometimes we are attracted to an outstanding opportunity to upgrade the genetics of our herd.  Such an opportunity came along this year in the form of a beautiful two year old female named Roberta.  We bid on her thinking that there was no way that we would not be outbid, but surprisingly, we found ourselves to be the last bidders, so we have come away with another truly wonderful champion female.  Roberta had already won two blue ribbons and a color champion from previous shows, and added another blue ribbon and color championship at the Florida Expo.

Roberta is in Nebraska right now being bred to a champion true black male.  She will be ready soon to come to her new home at Lake Liaho Farm, and might be bringing a friend with her:

We ran into a breeder from whom we had purchased one of our most reliable foundation females two years previously.  She had a beautiful fawn juvenile female that we think we be a perfect match for our rose gray champion herdsire Notorious.  Almondine turned out to be a blue ribbon winner at the show, which confirmed our choice to add her to our herd as well.

Almondine has a beautiful Sui bearded head, and silky lustrous locks that hang in perfect uniform twists all over her body.  Since her mother is a dark silver gray animal, we can look forward to some gray genetics coming through when bred to Notorious, our1/2 Accoyo rose gray herdsire.

We will be anticipating some truly outstanding cria to come from these new purchases.  Since we have added some great genetics to the herd, we are offering some our foundation females for sale at a very competitive price of only $5000.00.  All of these females are sold already bred, with one re-breeding to any fully owned herdsire included in the purchase price.  What a great opportunity for  an affordable herdstart for a new farm!

After saving three preemies this year our next two planned for births did not materialize at all.  In December Lurissa was due to give birth right around Christmas time, and she did - on December 23rd she delivered her cria, but it died before the birth sac was disturbed.  We found the little one in the morning during chore time - already stiff and cold, and perfectly encased in its birth membrane.  We’ll never know if this cria was stillborn, or died shortly after birth due to some trauma during its birthing process.  It was a huge disappointment.

The next expected cria was to come the first weekend in February - the weekend we planned to be at the Florida Expo.  I was so worried that Ripple would give birth and encounter some kind of problem while we were away that I called my son every few hours from Jacksonville to check on her.  She did not give birth.  All was well.  February came and went.  Ripple still had not given birth.  Two weeks into March Ripple still had not produced the looked for cria.  We finally confirmed what we had begun to suspect weeks earlier - she had re-absorbed that pregnancy months earlier, and was open.  Another disappointment!  Ripple bred quite readily (what were they waiting for? in her mind!) this weekend, so we’ll have to wait another year (!) for this one.

We have two more expected births to come in April of this year.  Hopefully these two will go as smoothly as all of the births went last year.  Nothing is ever predictable when working with live animals, and alpacas seem to be more unpredictable than most!

This fall has been the season for preemies at our farm.  We never had a premature birth before, but now we have had two preemies in a row, and a third cria that was technically full term, but small and weak.  The weather has been unusually hot this year, with a record breaking heat wave in October.  Temperatures that would normally top out at 80 degrees, soared to 95 or higher, with 80-90% humidity.  Two of our pregant dams with November due dates gave birth in October due to heat induced labor.

Shadow was born on Sunday, October 4, a full four weeks before her November 7 due date.    When my husband Steve found her in the pasture he thought that the cria had already died - it was just a black bundle that couldn’t even hold up its head.  When he discovered that the cria was breathing, we sprang into action.  She was given some powdered colostrum that we mixed with warm water and fed through a medicine dropper.  Then we took her to our vet for a plasma transfusion.  Dr. Davenport gave her a 50/50 chance of surviving, depending on how much nutrition we could get into her.  That night Shadow stayed on a little porch right outside our bedroom so that I could feed her every two hours with slightly diluted whole cow’s milk.  It took three days of these regular feedings before she was strong enough to stand and nurse on her own from her mother.  Fortunately her dam Lady Sadie did not reject her daughter, and Shadow began to thrive.  Today Shadow is a lively and inquisitive youngster that is gaining steadily and racing all over the pasture.

Just when we thought we were out of the woods with Shadow, Idlewyld, one of our first time mothers, gave birth to a 2 & 1/2 week premature male that we named Saladin.  Saladin was further along than Shadow had been when she was born, so he was a little stronger.  However he only weighed in at 10 pounds, and his birth was a very high pressure one, so he had trouble holding his neck straight and balancing himself.  Once again we took him to Dr. Davenport for a plasma transfusion and began the round the clock feeding.  Since his dam was an inexperienced mother, it took a little time for her to accept this new addition to her life.  We worked with him steadily for that first week, and finally he was able to nurse on his own and began to run and play with Shadow.  Saladin is a very precocious young male now - running and jumping on everything that sits still for a moment, including me!  I am happy to report that his neck is fine now - as evidenced in the picture, and he is gaining and growing at a remarkable rate, considering his rough start.

Our third cria this fall was born on November 15, well into his due date range, but weighed in at just 11 pounds.  He was also weak and wobbily - taking a full six days of assistance before he could stand on his own to nurse. We are calling this little one Eli.  Today he was able to stand by his dam, another first time mother named Lisa Marie, and nurse unaided.  Hopefully he will take off like the other two did after they could access the milk bar whenever they wanted it.

Our biggest lesson from this season of premature and weak cria, is to postpone our breeding season until we can be sure that the dam’s final three months of gestation are in cooler weather.  Last year we had several fall cria who were large at birth and thrived from day one without assistance.  But, we also had an unusually cool September and October in 2008, with two near freezes.  The late heat wave that we experienced this year pushed two dams into early labor, and robbed a third from allowing her cria to gain as much as he should have during his last month in utero.

We have also stepped up our feeding routine.  We are feeding the females their supplement twice a day and have doubled the hay that is offered.  We had been advised against over feeding in Florida to avoid over conditioning the animals, but we are finding that under feeding them causes more problems, especially with females giving birth to underweight cria.

Hopefully our experience will help other alpaca farmers in Florida to have more successful birthing seasons.  We know of several other farms who have had premature births this year due to the October heat wave.  Breeding alpacas in Florida has some unique challenges that change the way that we care for our animals.  However, we are coming into perfect alpaca weather - cool nights and breezy perfect days.  I look forward now to six months of lovely outdoor weather - and I’ll be thankful that I’m not shoveling snow and busting ice off of feed and water troughs!