Well all I can say is that our results far exceeded our expectations. It started vey well with the junior white suri female class. This was the largest suri class at the show. We managed a second and a third with Eva and Evita respectively. Well we would have been happy with this but it was not the end. Electra got second in junior fawn and Eddie, our little star, won junior fawn and then took reserve junior male. Pandora then won Intermediate female and also took reserve champion. By now we had got the taste for success but could only manage second in the progeny class with Matador. Well you can’t win everything! Roll on next year.

Got back home after a very successfull Bath & West show to one extra cria but not the one we expectected. Monica gave birth to a white suri girl. All well so far though she isn’t the prettiest of things at the moment.

We have some vistors with us who we met at the show. Shorty and Dee from Chapparral Alpacas and Gary and Sandy from Softfoot Alpacas, both in South Australia. As with all alpaca breeders, the first thing they wanted to see was the cria. The cria were pretty interested in Shorty as well.

The battleship sails on though. She’s got to explode soon.

We’ll be away for the next 4 days at Bath & West with the suri team. Up against some pretty stiff competition so will be delighted if we get a rosette. The battleship still hasn’t “unpacked” so might have some news on her when we get back.

Shearing day is over…….thank goodness. We now have 55 shivering alpacas refusing to move in the pouring rain.

All is well on the cria front as the pictures of Fortune doing his circuit training show. We are waiting on French Kiss to give birth or “unpack” as the vets put it. She is so wide she looks like a battleship from behind. If you were to stick a pin in her she would explode. Hopefully all is ok and she is just being sensible and holding out for some better weather.

Bozedown Ambrose, a white suri who is with us for a while till the BTV zones are sorted out gave birth to a lovely white suri girl today.

Ambrose is from Bozedown’s Peruvian selection and the cria’s sire is Bozedown Caesar and on first impressions she looks very smart indeed. If anyone is interested in improving their suri herd this female and cria present an ideal opportunity.

The sun didn’t really come out today so the pictures of the cria don’t do them justice but they are all doing well and putting on weight as expected. Fortune, the little dark brown boy is still the smallest even though he is the oldest. If you remember he was very premature and weighed about 5kgs, he’s was very slow to get going but now has suddenly jumped up in weight and is almost 9kgs.

Took this great picture of the suri show team. The next show for them will be Bath & West (28-31 May) but because of the BTV zone restrictions they won’t be able to come home. Instead they will be going onto Moonsbrook alpacas where 3 of them will be mated. All are Inca Matador females and one will be mated to Bulleyman, one to Suri Wonder Dream and the third to Remus. The rest of our suris will be mated here at home to Inca Matador or our new brown male suri called Caligula.

If anyone who visited from Duchy yesterday is concerned, there’s no need to be. Josh is doing well, Mum and him have bonded well and he’s having a great time pushing all his new mates around.

Thats probably all the excitement for a day or two. We’ve got other mums in the nursery field not quite full-term yet but you never know. I’ll get some shots of the older ones when the sun comes out again and let you see how they are growing.

We had a group of students from Duchy college visit today and the alpacas laid on a special show. While showing them the cria in the nursery field Missy went into labour right infront of our very eyes. With a little bit of help from some of the students she gave birth to a lovely white boy which they called Josh. Missy isn’t being the most attentive of mums yet but hopefully with a bit of persistence from Josh they’ll settle down.