Didn’t know it would happen again so soon, but on Friday,  November 20th we once again had two cria born in one day.

Of course, I was on my way out of town for most of the day, but Chuck did a fine job attending the births.

Fayette was the first one to have her cria – a little female by Snowmass Bright Horizon.  Then, Angelina decided it was her time and she gave us a little girl by Express’ Masterpiece Renoir.

Gillespie is the teenie little one on the left coming in at 10.9 pounds.  (She is now 13.9 pounds and growing very well).  Once you get into that little fluff on the outside little Espie is a medium fawn with tight little curls – and shine – boy is she shiny!

Brooks is the nice girl on the right, we think she is probably beige.  Her neck and legs do look white, but her body is definitely not.  She has dense, tight little curly crimp, too.  A fine looking duo. 

Five down and five or six to go.

This little guy was born on November 7th while we were in California at a friend’s sons wedding.  Our ranch sitter took super care of him – named him Caldwell – and he is doing great.

He is a Golden One son with Chinchero, Dom Lucilio and Royal Fawn in his lineage.  The brightness (shine) in this guy’s fleece is unbelievable!

Then one week later I went down to the pastures first thing in the morning to find this little critter on the ground already.Even though we missed this guys birth, we didn’t miss it by much.   We  were able to see him take his first steps and begin nursing.  As he – Harrison – began to get up Annie decided that she might as well have her baby so in the next 30 minutes we had another cria.  This time we had a little girl. 

This is sweet little Sabine.  She and Harrison are our first Express’ Masterpiece Renoir’s babies.  They both are grandkids of Accoyo Express and Peruvian Presidio.  Some pretty fantastic bloodlines!

When we got down to the pastures this morning Sari had already given birth to her cria.  SHE is a beautiful medium brown color, she’s healthy, robust, and very precious.  Makulu, you did a fantastic job, we are thrilled!

We name our cria after Texas counties and are running out of “girl” names.  That’s the good news -  means that we are having female crias!  So, this one’s name is Brazoria and we will be calling her Zori.  Kind of cute…

First good friend – Crosby nose to nose.

This is a beautiful little Stonewall Jaxon daughter…… Congratulations Mack and Martha!

Little Miss Cameron who was born atleast 14 days early is doing very well.  We took her to the vet yesterday morning to get her blood drawn for an IgG test.  That part always gives me a little fright since the cria are so small.  But, she did great and today her results came back at greater than 1500 and that is good.  So evidently Angelina had an ample supply of colostrum on board even though she delivered a little early.

Cami is a little squirt, but plays and jumps with the best of them.  Here she is at three days old!

She’s still got the tongue hanging out thing going on…  she is saying hello to Jack!  Sorry about the poop shovel in the background.  It just seems that whenever I get a decent pose with the alpacas there is always something in the way.

Today is day 320 for Angelina.  I went down to the pasture around 1pm to feed Palo Pinto her noon bottle and to take a ‘pregnant’ picture of Angelina for my blog and instead found Angelina giving birth to her cria!  My first thought was ‘oh no, this baby isn’t due for another three weeks’, but after watching the very smooth birth and watching this little girl thrash around on the ground, get sternal and stand within 45 minutes, I knew we weren’t in for a problem.  Her teeth aren’t erupted yet, and her tongue hangs out all the time, but she has nursed and has run all around the pasture, so I think she is going to be fine.  So here is Cameron weighing in at 13.6 pounds….

Because her bottom teeth aren’t erupted yet, her tongue hangs out all the time.  I wonder if that is normal.  Lauren says it’s because she doesn’t have any teeth to hold her tongue inside her mouth – I wonder?

Looking at this picture she seems to have quite a large schnozzle.  I hope she grows into that!

Cameron is an Altiplano Gold daughter, and an Oro granddaughter.  She is very very cute!

Angelina is due to deliver her cria mid December.  This will be her first one so we are keeping a very close watch on her.  She is in the pasture with the other three moms and their cria.  We did this so that she would be there when those kids were born and kind of get used to the idea that that is where she will be soon.  A mommy alpaca!

Today is day 316 out of an average gestation of 340 days.  Her due date is around December 16th.  I will post a picture of her soon.

On Sunday morning Annie decided it was her day to deliver.  I was all packed up and ready to head out to Kid ‘N Ewe and Lamas, Too in Boerne, but had to delay that and lend moral support to Chuck.  Annie’s cria was presenting normally with nose and leg -but only one leg.  About 15 minutes went by without seeing any sign of the other leg, so the decision was made that Annie would need help with this little one.

Chuck put on gloves and I poured iodine all over them.  After he felt like he had sufficiently covered the gloves with iodine, he went searching for that leg.  Annie was on the ground and really wasn’t interested in standing up.  But, a few moments of searching around inside her caused her to stand, which actually made the process much easier.

I held her at her head and just prayed that Chuck could figure out what position that leg was in and that he would have the wisdom to know which way to pull it out.  Next thing I knew, he said “got it” and that was that.  It just took one more big push and out came a very beautiful pure white female.  Poseidon’s Titus is her sire and we are excited about her future!   I will post a picture soon.

                        ***UPDATE***

I promised a picture of La Salle as soon as I got one.  I think this one is pretty good.  She has tight little shiny crimp inside all of that white fuzz.  So glad that Chuck was able to get her unstuck so she could be born!  This is Poseidon’s Titus first cria and by the looks of her, we will be using him a little more!

We knew Ariel was going into labor when after feeding this morning she separated herself from the rest of the herd.  We left the barn at about 9:15am and returned around 10:00am and already standing out in the pasture was Ariel’s new cria.  A beautiful beige/light fawn male!  He is a Stonewall Jaxon kid and I must say he looks fabulous!  Big bones, shiney little curls and just so inquisitive.  He’s got fleece all the way down to his toes!  He’s pretty tired in these pictures, but it didn’t take him long after he was born to start running and playing.

Crosby is the lightest Stonewall kid we have had.  We were kind of surprised because from this same pairing last year we received a medium fawn.  Oh, these color genetics are so much fun!

On Tuesday morning as we went down for our usual feeding and caring for the alpacas, we didn’t know it, but were in for a little surprise.

I was taking the feed bowls to the pregnant female pasture and placing them around as I usually do and as I turned around Shadow was there looking for her bowl.  As I moved toward her she backed up and turned and there hanging out of her back end was a head and two legs.  Shadow’s cria wasn’t due until November 17th, but as we all know, that doesn’t mean that’s when the actual cria will be born.

So, we were in for a birth….. and we were so glad that Shadow waited until we got back from the Mid America Alpaca Show in Kansas.  Within 30 minutes we had a nice little female alpaca on the ground.  This little girl only weighed 13.3 pounds, but boy was she full of energy and strength.  It took her about 20 minutes to stand on her own and walk.

This is Shadow’s 4th cria.  All of them have been multi colored.  We tried this breeding to ‘bleach’ out the markings by breeding her to a white male, but our plan didn’t seem to work.  I think we need a male with only white in his background – absolutely no hint of color anywhere.  Any ideas????

We have named this little one Palo Pinto.  We name our crias after counties in Texas and we thought the word Pinto in this name was perfect for her.  (Click the link on the word Palo Pinto and you can locate where that county is in Texas).  I know that Pinto means spotted or speckled and I am trying to figure out what Palo means.  If you know please let me know.