Venus at 30 minutes old

Our princess doesn't feel right... She's in early labor!!

Venus at 3 days old.

Opal and Venus resting in the barn

YEAH!!!! Our last cria has arrived! We had another girl.  Opal, our princess, went into labor on Sunday afternoon, just a few hours after my last posting.  She didn't make things easy on herself.  She laid down for most of her labor.  Venus was born just before 4 pm on Sunday, June 3.  She is white with lots of curls and crimp.  Her fiber looks like berber carpet.  She is very small: 12 lbs 6 oz at birth.  Her mama is our smallest female.  Our vet came out the next day to check on her.  She was not premature.    She has spent the first week being very passive but now that she is 10 days old, she runs and plays with Mocha.

Our first girl!

We have finally had a female cria!  Bubbles delivered Mandoline (Mandy, for short) on Friday, May 25 at 10:15 am.  I didn't have to assist with this birth either but was able to see most of the delivery.  She is a beautiful little thing with berber carpet fiber!! We're very excited about her overall appearance.

We have one more preggie on the farm to deliver still.  Opal is due within the next week.  I think she'll have deliver in the next few days.  She was our little PR gal before she got pregnant but she's been pretty aloof since she's been bred.  Just in the last couple of days though she has come back around for attention.  She's following in the same pattern as Ginger.  Anyone want to take bets on whether I'll be proven right?

Today, Sunday June 3 has been pretty busy for us so far.  We bred our junior herdsire, Zamboni, to Ruby.  He wasn't too interested at first, with this being his first breeding.  We brought Ace in to the pen to show him the way and after that he was fine!  Ruby is a dark brown  and Zamboni is a light rose grey so they will make a really nice cria!  We'll find out next year!

Surprise! We have another cria! Ruby delivered a little boy yesterday afternoon around 2 pm.  He appears to be a rose grey.  He weighed 18 pounds at birth.  He was up and around 45 minutes and was nursing within an hour!  He's beautiful!  Her delivery was quick and easy.  I saw the whole thing but didn't have to help at all, so I took photos! Yeah for I-Phones!

We haven't named him yet.  We do have a name for Ginger's cria now.  Officially, his name is NRVA El Corazon's Don Quixote.  His farm name is Quixote. I call him cutie Quixote!. He is growing by leaps and bounds. By yesterday he was 35 pounds!

We have named Ruby's cria. His name is Mocha Latte.   Here is another photo of him.

Welcome our newest addition to New River Valley Alpacas!!!  Our first cria of the season was born on Tuesday, April 17 at 1:45 pm.  It's a boy!  Ginger is the proud mama.  I even saw him born this time, and, in fact, assisted in his delivery.  One of his front legs was not extended out at the elbow so I garbed up in ob gloves and lots of lubricating gel and manipulated his other leg so that is was straight out and then Ginger pushed one more time and out he came! He is mostly white with some beige coloring on his neck and head.  At the moment we are calling him baby.  We are still trying to decide on his official name.  Here are some photos of the little guy.

I was suspicious of Ginger's behavior last weekend and into Monday.  She is very hormonal when pregnant!  We would simply touch her neck or back and she would turn and threaten to spit at us.  However, the last 2 days before delivery, she was giving us kisses! It was a total personality change!

Happy Easter to everyone!  It's already April 10, and way past time to update my blog.  So, here I go...

We had herd health last weekend and everyone is doing fine.  Ginger will be having her baby by the end of this month.  Bubbles and Ruby are due in mid-May, and lastly, but not least, Opal will be delivering in early June, hopefully.  We've had everyone out in pasture for 2 weeks now.  They are so happy to be out there again!

We moved the babies over with the teenagers on the boy's side so now Banjo, Wyatt , and Zamboni have 2 new friends.  Everyone is getting along very nicely!!

We'll be breeding the open girls in mid-May.  They are all going to other farms this spring to be bred.  The logistics might be a bit tricky to get 2 of them to their respective studs, but I'm sure it will all go smoothly.

Burgundy wool blend

Angora bunny/alpaca blend 

Wool blend plyed with angora/alpaca blend

I've kept busy knitting and spinning this winter.  I'm attaching a few photos of my newest handspun yarns. I have also woven one shawl on my triangle loom and have another one in progress. Shown below are 2 photos of my first shawl.

It is a beautiful sunny day here in southwest Virginia.  The forecast is for highs in the mid 50's with some wind.  We're expecting gusts of 20-30 mph.  John is home for the weekend.  I have scheduled herd health for this weekend.  All of the 'kids' need their AD & E shots.  We also need to weigh, check membranes and body score.  Last but not least will be trimming toenails.  My friend, Renee, was kind enough to help out on Thursday evening with the younger animals.  We did the basic herd health on the 2 babies, and on the little boys, as well as trimming their nails.  I also weighed Bubbles but decided to wait for John before trimming her nails.

This weekend, we'll be doing complete he'd health on the rest of the kids.  Opal is going to get a hair trim as well.  Poor thing, she has so much hair around her eyes that she has to look up to be able to see.  You might wonder why we've waited so long to remedy that.  She is the barn princess... with the accent on the -cess! lol  She prances around the dry lot.  She has tons of attitude!  Renee and I were going to start on her trim the other day.  I had Ruby, Opal and Bubbles closed in the barn for that purpose.  I decided to let Ruby and Bubbles outside and Opal managed to push her way out as well!  After that, we tried to bribe Opal back in with treats, hay and such but she would have no part of that!  She's no dummy!

Here are some photos of barn time for you.  I have a shot of each pen, just after dinner time, when they've been given a fresh stash of hay for the evening.

The 'baby' pen: Genny, Fiddler, Doc, Amy, and Genny

Patches, Solomon, and Ace

Bubbles, Ginger, Opal and Ruby

From left to right: Banjo, Zamboni and Wyatt

 It is now February 2, Groundhog Day. I have no clue whether 'Phil' saw his shadow.  I do know that it's a balmy 54 outside at New River Valley Alpacas.  All of the kids are enjoying the sunshine!  The chickens are out free ranging and the boys are taking sunbaths!

 I have 2 new photos to add of my newest spinning projects.  The first is more 'funky' yarn, played with a metallic thread.  The second photo is alpaca fiber dyed blue.  I can't wait to try my hand at dyeing! I had some help with the yarn shown here.

Blue Sparkle Cloud 

Blue Alpaca

Happy New Year!!

I hope that everyone is having a good start to 2012.  How many of ya'll have made resolutions? I have made quite a few... too many actually. How many have we bombed out on already?  Hmmm... I'm not ready to divulge that information yet! lol

So far, things are pretty quiet here on the farm.  I had a chat with a few of the hens.  The Easter Eggers were not laying at all, so I let them know in plain terms that they needed to get into action if they didn't want to end up as stew meat.  It was really an idle threat, because I could not do them in myself.  If John wants to try his hand at it, fine.  Anyway, they seemed to have gotten my message.  We've had quite a few green eggs in the last couple of weeks.

The boys are all in dry lot until spring.  We had all of the fields reseeded in late fall and so the boys will have to make do with grain and hay until it's warm and dry enough to let them back into their pastures.  Hopefully by March we'll have a nice pastures of orchard grass for them to eat!

The girls have been more fortunate.  We created a containment area for future visiting alpacas (primarily for females coming in for breedings).  Since we currently have no visitors, our girls have had the fortune of grazing there.  They have to take turns.  The bred females and Kisses go in one group.  The open girls and the baby boys go in the other group.  It's fun to watch them charge down there and then back up to the barn later!  Sometimes they will even prank!

I have been busy spinning lately.  I have several different bobbins going at present.  I did finish 2 singles of dark fawn (Ginger's fiber), but only have 1 skein that has actually been plyed.  Here is a photo of that yarn. It is a blend of merino wool, alpaca, bamboo, angelina, firestar, and silk noil,  played with bamboo thread.

Oh, we did have a vet procedure done on our male llama last week.  He was neutered last Monday.  I'm happy to say that he survived the surgery quite nicely and is already totally healed.  That should help calm him down.  He was getting pretty rowdy with the alpacas.

Have a great week, everyone!  I hope to give you some more photos by next week.