Eilsa gave us a gorgeous little white Verdello girl (at last) over the weekend. No problems with the delivery and the cria was straight into the cush and before long was suckling away happily. All OK you would think. Not so, the next morning the cria was flat, oh no not again we thought. Fortunately I’d been up to Classical alpacas last week and we’re well stocked with plasma. We got two tubes down her and started feeding her with Lamblac. I’m pleased to say she has strengthened up nicely and now is bloody awkward to catch. We’ve figured out what the problem is. She is only sucking on one teat for some strange reason and only the smallest back one and totally ignoring the other full ones. So even though we thought she was getting loads this wasn’t the case. We’ve tried milking mum and spreading the scent of milk around and hopefully the cria will find the other (very swollen) teats shortly. I’ve never known this before. anyone got any ideas??

This morning early found a lovely little white male suri running around the birthing field. That’s the best way, all done and dusted before you get there. But its boy, boys, boys at the moment.

When you see alpacas looking across a field like this you know immediately that there’s something up and sure enough as the next picture shows there’s the fox safe on the other side of the fence teasing the alpacas. He won’t come any closer though. Clever…

Fantasia gave us a gorgeous fawn male yesterday and it was textbook. He’s a punchy little fellow already causing mayhem and about as pretty as they come. Good to see after the disappointment of the weekend loss.

The other cria in the second picture is the little girl born last week with all the spots. She is also a Little Legend cria and you can see the spots on her nose and neck. The also run all over her body. We have called her Inkspot.

Camouflage and I paid a visit to Hendra Alpacas near Looe yesterday. Senara had a couple of ladies for Camouflage to meet. She has a lovely holiday complex with Alpacas, sheep, chickens and the biggest horse I have ever seen. This Shire lives in the same field as her females and crias, a lovely gentle animal and very inquisitive which can be a problem when you are trying to separate the alpacas out. We made a small pen beside the fencing, managed to get one of the females into place, brought Camo in and he got on with the business. At this point I lent back on the fencing and received the biggest electric shock of my life (while awake that is). My hair was standing on end, this wasn’t your normal 12v electric fencing, this was coming off the mains. This is what is needed to keep this enormous horse in place!! Senara was very sympathetic, all she could say was “Oh thanks Gary, at least I know its working!” You’d think I would have learn’t my lesson. When we brought the next female in I did exactly the same thing again. This time Senara was a bit more concerned as I reduced to speaking gibberish and she went and switched it off.

The shire was lovely, even allowing the cria to run in and around its legs. One of Senara’s females, when weaned turned to the shire for comfort and would suckle from her. Unfortunately I forgot my camera.

On a sadder note, the little male that was found stuck under the fencing yesterday didn’t make it through the night.

We had another cria arrive on Saturday ( no sign of measles you’ll be pleased to know Steve), he seemed a little bit weak, down on his pasterns etc but showed all the right signs till early this morning. Felicia was up and out with the sparrows as she normally is and found the poor little thing with his head caught under the fence and just about gone. He’s too weak to get up and feed so we have been giving him the bottle but as I have said before, some of them would rather die than take a bottle and he seems to be one of those. We’ve managed to get some stuff down him with a tube but he is completely flat so I’m afraid its a case of crossing all toes and fingers and we’ll see how it goes.

Our first girl of the year arrived yesterday ( that is apart from the one we lost back in April). Quite a relief after 4 boys in a row. She’s a Little Legend cria out of a light fawn mum and is light fawn herself with one other unexpected quality. She is covered in tiny little brown spots , even in her ears. They are such small spots that you don’t notice them at first glance but Felicia, of course, has decided that she must be an appaloosa and is already planning her first mating. guess who ?? In the horsey appaloosa world she would be called an inkspot or fewspot appaloosa.

The other four boys are still doing very well and their terrific weight gains continue unabated. The oldest two, Mundevhu and Invincible are around 25 to 26 kg now. The youngest boy born a couple of weks ago is weighing in at 18kg. The litlle suri boy who we have called Catcher (after his antics in the field with the other cria) has doubled to 12kg 2-3 weeks. He was born a brilliant white but has the most amazingly greasy fleece I have ever felt so now appears to be mid fawn in colour from all the dust sticking to him. It’ll be interesting to see how he develops.

I know it’s got nothing to do with alpacas but I know there are a few of you out there who want to see a few pics of my Le Mans experience. It was a very long weekend, I know why they call it an endurance race now and I was only a spectator for a few hours. I can’t remember the exact figures but they travel something like 3000 miles in the 24 hours lapping an eight mile track every three and a half minutes.Pretty impressive.

The first is the Audi and the second the Aston Martin (007), I didn’t get a decent shot of the eventual winner which was a Peugeot believe it or not and running on diesel!!!!

The cria blog will resume normal service shortly.

Three more days at a show last week, I’m up to my eyeballs with shows, this was different though as we were on a trade stand for Popham Alpacas. Glad to report lots of interest in alpacas and I am ammazed at how many people read this blog. A lady was down from Hampshire and was so pleased that we had Camouflage there as she had read about his arrival and seen the photos.

Because of all the shows over the last 3 weeks I’m afraid the blog has been a bit slow but once we get this weekend over which is another busy one, I’m off to Le Mans with the boys for the race and Felicia has Colin and a whole team of her friends in on Saturday for shearing I’ll get up to speed and get the cria pictures up and running again. After all that is what it’s mean’t to be—-a cria blog !!!!

Now I hear some of you say, “why is he allowed to go to France over shearing weekend”?? Don’t worry I will be paying for this error in planning for a very, very long time. I’ll publish some photos from the race for the petrol heads amonst us on my return (if allowed home that is)!!

The first day of Bath & west we got soaked but by lunch time on the second we were all complaining it was too hot. Never happy. The new location was great, much better than the old building, the cattle boys are welcome to it. The little coffee stall outside the marquee must have thought Christmas had come early, mind you his danish pastries were great. It was a great meeting place to catch up on the latest gossip of the alpaca circuit and wow is there a bit of that going around. We managed a Champion and a reserve with our suris and got into the placings a few times with the huacayas. Two of the placings came with positive comments on how our animals were the finest in the class so definitely signs that we are moving in the right direction.

Back at home we have had two crias arrive, both boys (making it four in a row, I hope that changes). A gorgeous little white suri boy and a fawn huacaya. Fortunately Tracy was here to oversee things. The huacaya is massive, weighing in at 11.5kg.

We’ve got a couple of days now to get ready for Royal Cornwall which starts on Thursday. I hope it cools down just a bit. I’d like to introduce you to a new blog. It’s from Steve and Jayne in Brittany France. www.quelvehinalpagas.com