Win an Alpaca Teddy Bear!

Alpaca Farm Girl is giving away an alpaca teddy bear. These teddy bears are softer than soft and very, very cute. Head on over and enter today!

Liberty's Cria has finally arrived.

Libety's Fall 2008 cria finally arrived on November 26th, 20 days after her 'due date.' I was starting to get worried. Liberty birthed a 17.3 pound, true black, girl. I have to say that I'm just pleased as punch about this, especially after everything that Liberty has been through the last 12 months.

Williams-Sonoma Gift Card Giveaway

Alpaca Farm Girl is celebrating the holidays with daily giveaways on her blog. Some are alpaca related. Others, like today's giveaway, are not. Today's giveaway is a $50 Williams-Sonoma Gift Card. So head on over to the site and check it out!

Marie in Full Fleece

Here's a nice shot of Marie in full fleece taken Spring 2008.

Mariposa's Griffin

Griffin is the newest addition to the herd. He arrived on October 15, 2008. He's already up to 32 pounds and is completely girl crazy. His white fleece has a nice luster to it and we expect him to be a BIG boy when he grows up.

His dam is Isis. Marie is his half sister and Ulysses is his half brother.

Mariposa's Birch Ulysses

Ulysses is just sweeter than sweet. He's very food motivated - much like his owner. Ulysses was born on October 12, 2007. His dam is Isis. Marie is his full sister and Griffin is his half brother. His pure white fleece is coming in nicely this year and he gets lots of compliments on his topknot. He has quite a following among my friends.

Mariposa's Rose Marie

Here's Marie with hay all in her top knot looking a lot like E. T. She was my first cria. Her dam is Isis. Ulysses is her full brother and Griffin is her half brother. Marie just turned 2 years old in October 2008. Her cria fleece has won several ribbons. Marie is ready to be bred but I will probably hold off on breeding her until Spring due to financial considerations.

Autumm

This is Autumm. And yes, I spelled it correctly. Autumm is my most recent acquisition. Some fellow alpaca owners were moving and they decided to disperse their herd, so I purchased Autumm. She's the oldest of all my animals and is the easiest to work with. She may not look like much but she has spectacular babies. To date she's had 9 crias. This fall she had a stillborn cria in the middle of the night. Needless to say, I was very disappointed and Autumm was rather distraught. Later that day another alpaca had a cria. Lo and behold, Autumm was letting this cria nurse and taking care of it as her own. So for now, the little cria has two moms!

PHF Liberty

Here's a photo of Liberty freshly shorn last spring. Liberty is a gorgeous true black and everyone just loves her dreadlocks.

The last 12 months have been particularly hard on Liberty. In Fall 2007 she gave birth to a bay black girl, Violet Faye. At 3 weeks of age, Violet developed sepsis which is a blood infection. Violet seemed to improve at first but then it became apparent that the infection had spread to her nervous system and there was absolutely nothing we could do. Losing Violet was hard on Liberty and myself as well.

At first Liberty seemed okay so we went ahead and bred her. A month later she developed a severe parasitic infection. We almost lost her. With exceptional care, she bounced back and seems healthier than ever. Surprisingly she held her pregnancy the entire time. Her 'due date' is November 6 and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all goes well.

Calliope's Isis

My first alpaca purchase, in 2006, was Isis. She's high up in the hierarchy of the herd and is quite well known for her attitude. She's first in line to be fed and has been known to dump feed bowls forcing the other alpacas to eat off the ground. Touching her belly is strictly forbidden!

When she isn't preggo, she's a completely different alpaca. She's actually rather sweet and you can get a look at her light fawn fleece.

She's a devoted and dedicated mom. Actually she looks after everyone's babies.

Her crias are Marie (2006), Ulysses (2007) and Griffin (2008).

Wow, it's been a long time......

I haven't posted in ages, mostly due to time constraints. Several of my friends have started personal blogs and I'm feeling somewhat inspired. While I don't feel comfortable sharing my personal life on the web, I'm more than happy to share stories about my alpacas.

Since my last post in March 2007, the herd has grown to 6 alpacas. All the alpacas now reside at Big River Alpacas in Dittmer, MO. For awhile they were spread out between several different farms.

In the coming posts, I'll introduce you to the members of the herd.