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.

Just 4 days overdue – not bad….

We are still patiently awaiting the birth of Sari’s Makulu cria.  Makulu is a pure white 3/4 Accoyo male who when bred to color can produce color.  He has had cria in colors ranging from white to medium brown.  Our female, Sari, is a color champion from the early 2000’s and is medium brown.  I am thinking she will have a white cria as the other three times she has been bred to white she has produced white.  But, I am in NO WAY an expert in genetics and stuff like that, so we could be surprised…..fine with me!

Will keep posting and you can be sure that I will include pictures of this little one once he/she arrives.

Day 323 – yep, that’s what Sari is at today.  Usual gestation for an alpaca is between 335 – 340 days, but can vary depending on the time of year.  Sometimes fall cria come a little early and spring cria will gestate a little longer.  Last year we had one dam go three days shy of a year then deliver a beautiful little bay black girl at 7pm in the evening! 

Sari is a Dom Lucilio daughter, the dam to Poseidon’s Isaac.  Last year she had a beautiful medium brown daughter by Snowmass Royal Flush.   This girl shows great promise!

We named her Taylor because of the distinct ‘T’ she has on her face….  and, Taylor is the name of a Texas county, which is how we are naming our alpacas.

  You can see more about Taylor at www.hillcountryalpacas.com
or at www.alpacastreet.com

Taylor has a first place ribbon from the A-OK Alpaca Blast Off 2009, and a third place from the 2009 10th Annual TxOLAN Alpaca Spectacular.  She is a very  nice finely fleeced little girl.

This year Sari was bred to Escondidos Makulu an outstanding son of the late El Nino.  Makulu’s cria have been taking blue ribbons and championships all year long.  Sari will surely have a cria of that same status and we are so looking forward to this cria.

Only a few more days to go Sari.  Can’t wait to see this baby!

This is one of my favorite times of an alpaca pregnancy – finally seeing the little one moving inside of mom….

I made it my mission to watch Sari yesterday and I eyed her for quite a long time.  She was walking around and I wasn’t able to see anything, then she cushed which probably caused the cria to change positions, and I saw ‘her’ move!  Little jumps here and there and then a little roll – so cute.  Sari is bred to Escondidos Makulu an extraordinary full peruvian 3/4 Accoyo son of El Nino.

Sari is the dam to Poseidon’s Isaac, a Caligula’s Accoyo Poseidon son.  So we know that Sari has the potential when bred to such a high quality male to put a fabulous cria on the ground.  It is soooo exciting.

This is a picture of Sari when she was pregnant with her last cria.  She is a beautiful Dom Lucilio daughter.  She is also an excellent mother.

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.

This Fall we are looking forward to the births of four new crias.  Our Annie is going to have our first Poseidon’s Titus baby and we are really looking forward to seeing what comes of that.  Annie is a great mom and easy birther and her babies have always been healthy and thriving.  With this pairing we are hoping for a white offspring even though Annie has lots of color in her background – actually a pretty medium fawn would be great, too.

Then there is Ariel who is once again bred to Stonewall.  Ariel has given us four females in a row – I wonder if she will continue that trend?  Her last one with Stonewall is a very nice little medium fawn female who will be going to the shows this year.  Madison is a real cutie.

Then we have Shadow who is bred to Kokimo a nice Yupanqui grandson that we haven’t used very much.  Every time we have bred Shadow to color we have gotten a patterned cria.  This time we wanted to breed that pattern out so we decided to go with a white male.   Again, anxious to see that cria when he/she arrives!

And finally – our Angelina is going to have her first cria.  Angelina is bred to Altiplano Gold an older male who is in Texas now and is putting lovely cria on the ground!  We are excited to see this kid.