Typical day of cria hijinks

This is what a typical day of cria hijinks looks like at our farm.

The new baby, Rusty, is just trying to figure out where he fits in.

Penny, our 1 month old little girl is following the 3 month old boys around. The 3 month old boys are already up to no good: Max is practicing to be a stud boy by trying to mount his mother, while Henry has decided that chewing on his own leg might be fun.

Luc the dog ignores it all, while Rayo the yearling looks like he wants to join in on the "fun".

Ah, what can I say? Nothing is funnier than cria at play!




-- Posted from my iPhone

Please welcome Little Rusty!

Our 2009 cria season is now complete with the arrival of Juliette's cria, a 16lb healthy little boy who is an interesting fawn color with a gray face and lower legs. He is cute as can be, and we can't wait to watch his color develop to see what color he really turns out to be!

Juliette did great, birth was completely unassisted which was great since we both happened to be at work. Her delivery was the only one we missed this year, so we are thankful that she did not need any assistance.

We have also been busy with adding onto our barn and building new structures. The place is growing rapidly. By next year, we should have our farm store up and running and be ready to host events such as seminars and open houses. It should be a great year.

Please Welcome Penny!

Hi Penny, I'm Max!

Don't worry Mom. I got it all under control.

GET ME OUT OF HERE!

First steps

Imlay delivered her 2009 cria on August 15th, around 6pm. Was a little worried about her with the late in the day labor, but all was well as Imlay proved once again: "I got it under control, 6am or 6pm, doesn't matter!" On top of having a healthy cria and unassisted delivery, she gave us a gorgeous little girl!

Currently calling her Penny as she was the color a bright new shiny penny yesterday. Today, she's turning into a lovely dark - medium fawn. She's the largest cria we've had born here to date at 21.8 pounds. Our other cria have averaged between 15-17 lbs at birth. Imlay is a champ and Creme Brulee, our Patagonia Compadre son, is now proven with a little girl on the ground. Great job Imlay and Creme!

No News for Paris

July 1st was a sad day here at ShaDo Alpacas, as Paris delivered a stillborn. I had to help her delivery a full term, true black little boy but unfortunately he had passed a way a couple of days prior to Paris going into labor. We took the little boy up to the vet for a necropsy, and also had to take Paris in as she had not delivered the placenta.

I spoke to our vet today, and the cause of death could not be determined. Paris is doing great and will be re-bred later this summer after a few more weeks rest and recovery. While it is frustrating to not have any answers, we are at least comforted by the fact that Paris is fine, and appears to have no idea about what happened to her. She is a healthy, well adjusted girl and we can't wait to see what she can do next year.

In the meantime, we are still expecting cria's from Imlay in August and hopefully, Juliette in September. Our two new babies, Max and Henry, are doing GREAT. Very active, healthy little boys. Max is an absolute stunner and Henry is cute as cute can be. He also thinks he's a Great Pyrenees, but that's a whole other post entirely!

New Cria's Birth Slideshow

Cashew and Northstar both gave birth to little boys on Friday June 19th. This slideshow captures both births and the cria's first day with their herd. Names are pending....right now I'm calling them Hank and Max instead of Cashew's baby, etc.

I still can't believe these two went into labor on me at the exact same time! Everything went fine, luckily my only problem was trying to figure out who to photograph and when. Cashew is an experienced Mom, but this was Northstar's first cria. She did great, immediately started caring for her little boy and is a very attentive Mom.

Latest Edition

Please welcome Disco, Luc's new little sister. She is living with Luc and the alpacas and is learning how to protect them from predators. Ok, right now she's really just jumping all over Luc and pulling his tail and doing all the things that annoying little sisters do....but she'll get it soon enough! She is 8 weeks old, and has already learned her name and that if she SITS, she'll get attention, so she's fitting in perfectly!

Rayo's First Haircut--Shearing Day 2009

It's me, Rayo from ShaDo Alpacas.   I get to be the official spoke-paca for Shearing Day 2009!  I am so excited!  Well, really I am just glad it's all over now, cuz it was my first time getting a hair cut.  I did NOT like it, but I was very brave.  I must show those big boys who's really the boss around here.

Special thanks to everyone who came out to help with our shearing day.  I heard Mom and Dad say that they couldn't have done it without you!  I also wanted to thank Franc and Ruben for taking such good care of my herdmates and me.    We have tons of pictures up in our gallery, check it out at MY GALLERY.

If you have any pictures you’d like to include in our gallery, please send them our way.  You can reach us at info@shadoalpacas.com. 

I also wanted to tell everyone that I love visitors.  Please contact us to schedule a farm visit.  We’ll be opening a farm store later this summer and there might even be some products made from MY fiber one of these days.  Right now, we have socks for sale on our website and I hear they are amazing.

I’m getting pretty big now, but I won’t be the baby of the herd for long.  Cashew, Paris, Northstar, Imlay and Juliette are all due to have crias this year so check back soon for updates on the new babies.  Better yet, sign up for the ShaDo Alpacas newsletter at www.shadoalpacas.com to get the latest news FIRST! 

We are also on Facebook now.  Feel free to check us out and add yourself as a fan!  I’m pretty busy now with all this Facebook stuff, posting on our blog and posing for the thousands of pictures that Mom insists on taking.  You’d think I was a movie star or something the way she follows me around with that camera. 

Well, I’ve got to run now.  It’s time for me to pronk my way around my paca-run and get the other boys to chase me.  Mokka always tries to race me, but I’m still the fastest….I’m named after lightning, after all……….Happy Pronking!

Here's to the arrival of Spring!

We had a rough winter with record snowfalls as you can see in this picture. Here's to welcoming spring finally! We've had a busy few months on the farm and have a few bits of exciting news to share.

Rayo has now been weaned and is doing great with his new buddies, Mokka and Cosner. He's learning his place in his new herd, and is already starting to make his presence felt. We decided not to show him this season, as he had just been weaned and we didn't want to stress him. We also decided to wait until we have more than one alpaca to show.

We did enter photos in the Alpacapalooza photo contest, and managed to win two ribbons! We took a third in the humor category for the this photo of Rayo trying to share his leaf with Creme Brulee and won best marketing photo for the photo of Carlton watching the girls run past him, kicking up their heels.

In celebration of the photo contest ribbons, we now have some great products for sale at Zazzle.com with these photos and more! Please check out our store at http://www.zazzle.com/shadoalpacas or at the alpaca gifts link to the left.

We are also now on Facebook! Please join us and become a fan.