A blessed arrival!

We have a cria!  Ruby delivered her first baby this morning around 6 am.  I'm guessing at the arrival time.  I woke up and looked out the window at the barn around 7:20 and saw a brown blob and with a closer look via binoculars I could tell that it was a cria.  I dressed very quickly and ran out to the barn and into the dry lot to bring the baby in to dry it.  In the cleanup process I was able to find out that it was a boy!  His birth weight is 15.6 lbs. I think we're going to name him Fiddler.  He appears to be a bay black right now.  His daddy is a silver grey.

He's doing great. He's already been nursing and Ruby is a great mom already!  Here are some photos.

Let's add chickens!

Hi all!

I've been busy getting the farm ready for the arrival of some chickens.  Why chickens, you ask? We have been buying fresh eggs from local farms periodically and love the idea of being able to get our own eggs.
Also,  chickens are very good at bug control.  They will be allowed to free range a good bit so hopefully they will spend alot of time hunting for bugs from the poop pile.
  I've been back and forth about how many to start with and for now, I've decided on 4 chickens.   I will probably get a few more in a month or so, ending with 8 hens. The first 4 are being delivered tomorrow.  We're getting 4 hens that have just started laying.  I've attached some photos for you of the chicken coop  and the chicken yard.  More photos will be added soon of the "girls".  We will have 2 Americaunas and 2 Rhode Island Reds.  The reds lay brown eggs.  The Americaunas lay green or blue eggs.  They are also known as the easter egg chickens.

I decided to go with adults so we could have eggs right away.  When you buy pullets from the farm store, there's a 4-5 month wait before the chickens actually start laying.  One neat thing I've learned about hens: when they are hatched, the number of eggs they will lay in their lifetime has already been predetermined.  The quantity varies, depending on the breed.  It is not necessary to have a rooster for them to lay.  Therefore, no rooster will live at New River Valley Alpacas.

A quick update on the alpacas:  no cria yet.  Ruby is due in the next week so, based on a 330 - 350 day gestation, we will most likely have a little one on the farm by April 15.  Bubbles is due around the 20th of April.  I don't think she'll go that long though.  She's very large already and quite uncomfortable.  I hope she delivers before the 20th because April 20 is shearing day for everyone. If she hasn't delivered by then, I'm sure she'll have the cria shortly after shearing.

Countdown to new babies!

Where has this month gone??  When I last wrote, we still had Ginger and Wyatt in quarantine.  Ginger has been with the other girls for about 3 weeks now and doing great.  She gets along well with everyone.  She's a real sweetheart.  I get kisses from her alot!  Ruby and Bubbles are just a few weeks away from their due dates.  Ruby's cria should be arriving in early April or after.  She's getting quite testy now!  Bubbles is due a couple of weeks after Ruby.  She's even testier! She's been thru this a few times already tho.  Three of the girls managed to get some burrs stuck in their fiber sometime on Saturday. It looked awful! I was concerned that Bubbles wouldn't let me get them off of her today, but once I got the halter on her, she was a real champ!  I think she was glad to have them off!

Banjo was down in Concord a week ago for the Carolina Alpaca Celebration.  He got a 5th place ribbon.  Since Wyatt would have been without a roomie for the weekend, I moved Bubbles over with him for 2 nights. She was fine with that and he seemed happier to have company.

I attended a camelid neonatal seminar at Virginia Tech on Saturday.  It was very interesting!  We learned about possible birth defects, proper nutrition for gestational camelids, alpacas especially.  In the afternoon we had hands on training in a lab, practicing for distocia deliveries on our mamas.  We learned to identify forelegs and rear legs in utero, as well as tails vs ears. It was really weird at first, and kind of gross! We were working with dead fetuses that had been frozen and then thawed out for the training.  I do feel much more prepared in the event that I might need to assist either Ruby or Bubbles.

Oh, I forgot to mention something.  We got our yarn back from the fiber mill.  I've been busy this last week, designing and printing labels for all of the yarn.  There is still some more to come, but for now we have 6+ skeins for the following animals: Ace, Solomon, Bubbles and Ruby.   It's wonderful! I can't wait to start a project with some of it!  For any of you that are interested in buying yarn, please email me at nrvalpacas@gmail.com.  I'll be happy to give you more specifics.  Genny's yarn should be coming any day now.   It will be 2 months before we get Opal's back. It went to a different mill.  I'll be taking photos of the yarn and the rovings as well and posting it here on the blog.  In the meantime, here are some photos of daily work, and some play, on the farm.

Kisses from Ginger.  I think Bubbles and Ruby want some too!

Poop scooping - someone has to do it!

Snack time!

John with his (our) girls

Hi all,

I can't believe it will be February 1 tomorrow!  By the end of this week, we'll be into our 5th month as an active alpaca farm.  It's been challenging, but also fun.  I've loved seeing the different personalities develop among our 'kids'.   The two preggies hadn't finished their food this morning so I decided to give it to them tonight while the dogs ate.  Most of the girls and Banjo were hovering in the barn hoping for a snack.  Opal, Kisses, and Banjo were very surprised when they found themselves closed in the barn, especially when they saw that they were missing out on chow!  Bubbles and Ruby appreciated not having to share their food though!

We've added two more kids to the family.  We brought Ginger and Wyatt home a week ago.  They are  in quarantine for now.  Our young llama, Patches, is now bunking with the big boys (he's almost their size already!) and they're getting along great.   Banjo is in with the girls for just 2 weeks. That has worked out fine.   We will be moving Ginger in with the girls and Banjo will join Wyatt next door.

Ginger (Ginger Snap) is a medium fawn, about 3 years old, a  real sweetheart. One of the  photos below is of Ginger with Kayley (our neighbor's granddaughter).  The other is of Wyatt (Wyatt Earp) and Ginger.  Wyatt is an 18 month silver grey boy.   He's a little shy right now but he's warming up to us.

Ginger giving kisses to Kayley

Our two 'probies'

More snow!

Good morning, all!

We had more snow last night.  It only amounted to about 1 inch but it sure was pretty while it was coming down.  The kids love the snow! They were all cushing out in the dry lots when I went out to tuck them in for the night.  Our brown girls were so pretty with their snow blankets!

I'm headed back out to the barn shortly to do the cleanup for the day.   We have a small boom box out there so I usually turn it on to country music while I work.  The kids seem to enjoy the music also.

Happy New Year!

Wow! I can't believe it's already 2011!  I hope that everyone is having a good one so far!  I have no complaints here.

John and I celebrated the new year by opening a bottle of bubbly of course.  We called out a hearty greeting to our neighbors from our front door and then went out to the barn to see all the kids and wish them a happy new year too!  They were somewhat oblivious to it all.  I think we woke them up! LOL

We had our first snow of the new year this morning, with more expected by Monday.  We really just had a dusting at our farm. I took advantage of the cold and cleaned after them before it thaws and gets squishy!

I don't have any new photos at present but will try to dig some up in the next few days.

It's almost Christmas!

We had a busy and fun weekend.  John brought up some furniture from Charlotte on his truck so Friday we were busy unloading and then setting up a bed.  I had painted the guest room the weekend before. It still needs a little work - floor trim needs to be repainted -but that will be a lot easier and can be done later.  He's bringing up the desk and dresser for that room on Thursday.

We went to a Christmas tree farm on Saturday morning.  There were so many to choose from, but we finally decided on the right one and then we cut it down ourselves!  We've never done that before.  Of course, when we got it home, we had to put it in the stand and set it up in the house.  We've been stringing lights and hanging ornaments on and off all weekend.  It's finished now though and looks great!

Communing with the girls - Bubbles, Opal and Tasha

Opal, our reindeer 'paca

We had fun out at the barn this afternoon with the kids.  Our big llama, Kisses, comes by her name honestly.  She gave me lots and lots of kisses this afternoon.  Opal was giving them out too!  I brought out a Christmas headband for photo opportunities.  Opal was the lucky participant.