Cindy’s Alpaca Blog

After three early births last fall, we are now experiencing near record gestation periods.  Champagne gave birth to a fine fawn female that we named Chablis after 387 days of gestation.  Dressy is currently at day 393 of her pregnance, and she is still holding.  I would think that she is no longer pregnant, except for the fact that you can plainly see the cria’s movement inside her belly.  How long can an alpaca’s pregnancy last?  We may find out with Dressy’s pregnancy.  The longest alpaca gestation period that I have read about so far is 400 days.  We might break that record!

Here’s Dressy at a very large 393 days of gestation:

And here is Champagne’s proud cria Chablis, who was born after 387 days of gestation.  She is almost as big as her mama!

As soon as Dressy has her cria we will post pictures of it on this blog.  One thing I will say about these over-cooked cria - they come out looking like they are already two months old.  Chablis was running all over our pasture the day after her birth.  No wobbly legs or difficulty finding Mama’s teets!  She was ready to go from day one.  Now let’s hope for the same from Dressy’s cria…