JandJ Swift

Swift with a milky mouth

Last Friday, where has this week gone! Skylark gave birth to a beautiful little girl called Swift. As Skylark is my alpaca & one of the original 4 she is very special to me & I was determined to see the birth. For a not too big alpaca she is always huge at the end of her pregnancy & we have often seen bulges of legs appear on her stomach, when we sheared her back at the end of April she looked ready to give birth.
Skylark always gives birth later in the day, only once with Wren it was 11am, with the other 4 it  has been between 1 & 2.30 so I kept watch. At 2.30 nothing but she was so uncomfortable & by 3 we definitely had an alpaca on the way,  Swift arrived at 3.30 much to my relief. 
Swift is beautiful, gorgeous shiny jet black & because of this very hard to photo.Skylark's cria are named after birds so we have Raven, Wren, Robin, Ani & Kitt. Swift was up & trying to feed within 15 mins Skylark's babies are always like this, especially the girls, they whizz around on the first day & then become calm & relaxed like their mum. 


All day Clementine has been uncomfortable so I am hopeful for another birth tomorrow. She is 11 months & 6 days & so are Miss MoneyPenny & Ani, all are pregnant to different sires.

Yorkshire Alpaca Show at Thirsk

JandJ Hope

We had a fabulous day at Thirsk yesterday. Very early start but it was worth it. We took 6 alpacas & came home with 5 rosettes and a sash. James was one of the penning stewards & we took some of our products to sell as we are members of the Yorkshire Alpaca Group.

It was the first time we had entered any girls this year & we decided to take Hope, Peace & Ruby Tuesday & our boys who we have shown before this year Kitt, Frazer & Diesel.

The stewards decided that Peace should be moved from the brown class to the black class. This meant that in the first class of the day, the intermediate female black huacaya class, Hope was the first alpaca into the ring & Peace was 5 alpacas behind her. Hope was given a 2nd Rosette and Peace a 5th. As the 1st & 2nd of each class go forward to the Championship for Champion Black Female Huacaya Hope was in the ring again & this time came away with a Reserve Champion Black Female Huacaya sash. We are so pleased with this, as it is our first sash & Hope is the daughter of Mississsippi Moonlight one of our original 4 alpacas.

Ruby Tuesday was next in the ring in a large class of fawn girls & unfortunately did not get a rosette. People wandering round the pens though did really like Ruby the best out of all our alpacas.

Next it was the turn of the boys, Diesel was first as he is black & came out with a 5th Rosette.

Kitt was next, he is a gorgeous beige & the son of my alpaca Skylark, & he came out with a 2nd Rosette.

Frazer was last, our lovely white out of yet another of our original 4, Luminaria who always has gorgeous cria, he was in a large class, the top 6 were pulled forward & Frazer was one of them, then the judge placed them in order & he was moved to 3rd place which he kept and came out with a 3rd rosette.