Posted by roo on April 7th, 2010 — Posted in Unreal, Arabella, Serious, Julia, Demi, Penelope
Unreal and the two young males that Pam brought back from the AlpacaRosa have been quarantined in a pen in the barn since their return, to ensure that nobody was introducing unwanted parasites to the rest of the herd. Their fecals revealed nothing of interest, so they were released from the pen to join the other juveniles. What a joy it was to watch them run and pronk with excitement, happy to feel the grass under their feet and the wind in their ‘hair’.
When Serious was in ICU at the vet recently, and we had to reintroduce him to his mother Mazara who I brought as his companion, I was struck with how highly emotional alpacas truly are. He was so relieved, so surprised, so comforted, when I led her into the stable where he was cushed, depressed, in a corner. They hadn’t seen each other in months, and yet they immediately resumed their roles as mother and child.
The way in which Unreal and his new friends behaved when released from the pen was also a display of emotion, one of pure happiness and excitement. When observed closely, and in many different situations, it becomes very clear that alpacas are delicately balanced creatures, who absolutely thrive only when herd relationships are maintained.
In another pasture, 4 of my girls were grazing together. My intention was to get some ‘belly’ photos of Penelope, but I got sidetracked because I wanted to take in the peace of of their private little herd, and because I can’t help but be impressed by the amount of fiber that Arabella is carrying around. After they posed for some pictures, they dismissed my presence as thought I wasn’t even there. Just the way it should be.
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Posted by roo on April 2nd, 2010 — Posted in Serious
With all the heartache over the summer and fall, and the few days of ‘hanging in the balance’ recently, today is a pretty big milestone for this guy. It’s his first birthday!
He was a strapping young cria, the prince of his pasture, perfectly straight conformation wise, displayed the most amazing wedge shaped head… and was horribly wild. So wild in fact, that Rachel (MaRachel’s Alpacas of Ohio) was concerned about me putting him in the van when I came to collect him and his mother Mazara. She thought he would go ballistic, perhaps even break through the glass or at least come flying over back seats and wreak havoc like a trapped deer.
How far he has come. He’s now one of my most laid back animals. He watches silently and quietly, quite the forlorn young boy, and does not complain when he’s handled. His first shearing revealed a lovely bay black glossy coat, but his second shearing recently revealed him to be dark brown. He’s metamorphasised both physically and temperament wise, emerging as a beautiful, calm young man.
He’s got some catching up to do - his body has still not recouperated from the lack of nutrition since the summer. But to be able to celebrate his first birthday is something special!
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Posted by roo on April 22nd, 2009 — Posted in Serious, Ophelia, Mazara
When Rachel sent notice that she was unable to keep the arrangements we had made to bring Demi to Ohio later this month due to other urgent things unexpectedly popping up, I took the plunge and left the very next day to take Demi up there and bring Mazara and Serious home. A 10 hour drive turned into an almost 12 hour drive each way, because Linda’s farm is actually NOT on the way as I first thought, but OUT of the way!
I picked Demi up on Saturday, she cushed down as soon as the van began to move and after an hour of seeing absolutely nothing of her, I began to get worried. I figured out very quickly however, that she was just relaxing, laying stretched out on her side until I stopped the van, then she would lift her head and give me a horribly dirty look over the back seat before disappearing again and waiting for me to take off.
During the last three hours she began standing up a lot, looking around urgently, laying back down, and I knew she had to pee. She occupied herself by munching on her hay, but she did not once pee, what a trooper!
We arrived shortly after dark, Rachel and I opened the back of the van and after contemplating the situation for a moment, Demi did an amazingly high antelope leap onto the driveway and galopped off, leaving us standing with our mouths open, wondering how on earh she did not knock herself out on the back door of the van with her head. She must have only just cleared it, leaping a good 5 feet high through the air.
On Sunday morning Rachel took me to see her alpacas, and I got to briefly see Ophelia - how she has developed into a beautiful young maiden - she has a more mature face now, but is still just as pretty as when she was when I saw her a year ago as a youngster. She’s a ‘kisser’ as Rachel calls it, loves to nuzzle your face with her velvet muzzle.
Serious is such a pretty boy (above, with Ophelia) - he has a presence about him that speaks loudly ‘I am a prince!’, and he seems to glide with an elegance, not walk. His colour is hard to determine because it appears to be a very dark glowing copper, very velvety, so I’ll need to wait for his fiber to grow in a little before I can determine whether he is a medium or a dark brown. Either way, he is just beautiful and seems to have inherited his daddy’s head. The quality of his fiber is hard to determine right now - it’s very fine like Mazara’s, yet in the past few days he has begun to grow crimpy fiber underneath. Time will tell, but I am FAR from disappointed with this young man!
Rachel helped me load Mazara and Serious, and an hour before noon I set off again, back to Alabama. It rained and stormed like crazy for a good 8 hours of the trip, but I kept a good pace, I wanted to be home at a reasonable time.
At Linda’s we ran at full speed to the barn, Linda carrying Serious, me being lead by Mazara as she tried to keep next to her cria, because it was storming hard and the lightning was so severe that I saw sparks flying several times. Mother and baby were put in an empty stall where they spent the night safe and secure. I returned the following morning to take some pictures and to set Billie to work on breedings, but that’s a separate blog 
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Posted by roo on April 17th, 2009 — Posted in Serious, Mazara, Demi
How did my little girl grow up so fast? Our first born cria, Demi, is ready for her first breeding. I’m taking her to Ohio tomorrow to be bred to one of Rachel’s boys, and I’ll leave her there until she’s confirmed pregnant. She’ll ride in the van with me, just her and I, the long 10 hour haul north.
I’ll stay the night with Rachel, then on Sunday morning we’ll load Mazara and Serious in the van and I’ll be making the trek back with mom and baby. Serious, from what I’m hearing, has developed serious attitude and he may turn out to be a handful in the van, which is why I’m doing the trip alone, not with my 4-year old in tow, lest Serious jump into the back seat and hurt him. Initially I was going to take Penelope up with Demi as a travel companion and bring her back with Mazara, but I’ve decided that Serious may feel far more at ease if it’s just him and his mother, so Penelope is staying home.
I’m excited to see our new cria, can’t wait to get pictures! I’m nervous about Demi, fingers crossed she’s ready for breeding and that she’ll have no problems conceiving. Tonight I had better get an early night
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Posted by roo on April 8th, 2009 — Posted in Serious, Mazara
A very small little sneaky-peeky, thanks to Rachel who sent this to me from her phone. A quick overview from her of how he’s doing:
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- He weighs 20 1/2 pounds (yesterday)
- Very strong, actually hard to keep still , to put on hernia belt it took 2 people
- He is dark brown with black ears and feet, nose. Very cute.
- Fleece looks decent, not super, defineatly better than average. He is still young give him some time, especially to see the coat as it grows out.
- He has a little goopy eye, giving some vitamins, and if it continues, opthalmic ointment.
- Still down in his pasturns, but much improved from when he was born. No splinting since they are correcting themselves.
- His umbilical hernia is about the width of a fingertip.
- Mazara is a sweet natured mother, am really proud of her. She cooos and humms to him and was so worried when I took him and was waiting for him when I returned him.
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