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 long. We currently have four…
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….
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…
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….
A beautiful fawn cria was born on our farm this afternoon. Her dam is NM Mustang Sally and her sire is NM B Dylan. This is the first cria for both of them. The alpacas are owned by New Millennium Alpaca Farm and are boarded here. We will be offering breedings to Dylan this year and…
Yesterday we welcomed (finally!) the year’s first cria. At 358 days gestation, this not-so-little girl weighed in at 20.2 lbs. There was a bit of difficulty with the birth – the cria’s elbow was back and trying to come out at the same time as the shoulders and wouldn’t fit. But after a lot of lube…
This morning was a good reminder that it’s still spring here in northern Vermont. The temp was a frosty 25 when I checked at 5 am! We worry about early morning crias on days like this. But there were no babies when Ron did the early morning barn check on his way out to shear at…
Today I saw a cria kicking (in utero). Hannah’s Julie, one of our best females, is due in mid-May and her baby was kicking up a storm this afternoon. We always see a lot of “action’ with Julie’s crias. This is the first I’ve seen this year and reminds me to get my “cria kit”…