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.

First cria of 2012 JandJ Magic

Yesterday morning in all that horrible weather our first cria of the year was born. Luckily when the weather is bad & the babies are due or are a newly born we often shut our girls in the barn overnight to protect the cria more than anything else as we have mums who would like to be out in all weathers with their cria at the bottom of the field but we also have mums who like the warm & comfort of the barn & wouldn't dream of being out in the rain! 

 Gem & Magic at 7 hours old

Motherly love
In the background Skylark, Ani, Miss MoneyPenny, Clementine  & Spirit

Anyway our first girl to give birth is Gem, this is her first cria he was born at 9.20am & we watched the birth along with the other girls in the barn especially Clementine who kept checking him. Gorgeous little dark brown boy who we've called Magic.Gem is a brilliant mum & Magic is doing well, he had to have a coat on last night as it was so cold & we are hoping that he will get chance to go outside tomorrow if it stops raining long enough.

JandJ Freya

Last but not least a week later the last cria of the year was born. Flora had quite a long labour but eventually at 9.50 Freya was born, she is Flora's first cria. Freya is a beautiful black little girl always likes to be at the front looking at what is happening.

JandJ Caspian

We had to wait another couple of weeks for the second to last cria of last year. Lana Caspian's mum is very sneaky, she does not like us seeing her give birth. When Clementine, Caspian's big big sister was born I was checking Lana every hour & when I went to check her near a bunch of nettles a little cria stood up! The next year she snook big sister Kiki out at 7.30am. Caspian is the closest to seeing the birth I have had, he had only just touched the ground, he was born at 9.45 & Lana gave no indication she was in labour as normal, she is a very good mum, keeps her cria close & is very attentive. He has always been very photogenic & cute & very inquisitive.. We took him to the Newark & Notts Show & he was in a class with Henley, Hen came 2nd & Cas came 4th a very good result.

JandJ Enya

Gem was humming last night & a new cria is imminent.

Gypsy with Enya, Divine & Flora

JandJ Enya was born on 19th July at 10.30, text book birth, her mum Gypsy is a very experience mum she has had 4 cria with us before Enya, Lana, Deacon, Murphy & Malachai. Gypsy babies are now given Irish names so Enya was a good choice for us an we like Enya's music.Up and feeding within an hour, Enya is jet black with a beautiful head & has grown into a gorgeous little girl.

JandJ Avalon

We were so busy watching Treasure being born that we missed Avalon, he was in a different field as he was born early at 10 months 2 weeks and 5 days & his mum Raven had not yet been moved into the field near the house. Avalon was fine, up and feeding he is Raven's first boy, Eden and Persia are his big sisters all of them are jet black just like their mum. He is always at the front of the pack like big sis Persia & is a handsome boy.
Avalon went to the Newark & Notts Alpaca Show & came away with a 1st rosette, he was very good in the ring & all day & we were very proud of him.

Raven & Avalon

JandJ Treasure

My girls are humming away in the field this morning especially Miss MoneyPenny & she's not due first. Gem is looking at little more ready & the sun is shining, it's probably the best day of the week to give birth but I think that it is unlikely to be today but she's being watched every hour.

 JandJ Treasure was born on a  lovely sunny July morning at 11.35. She is Thea's first cria and we watched the birth & it took time for her head to come out quite a large head, it's always interesting we have large heads, small & huge cria & when the grow up they all seem about the same size. Treasure certainly doesn't have a large head now but a very cute teddy bear head she is very pretty. She's a very dark chocolate brown colour (which is always the best colour to make scarves out of it's so popular) & all one colour which is different to her mum Thea who is the only girl we have with a large spot on her back. Thea's also claim to fame is that she had the best micron baby fleece on the farm & we have made gorgeous scarves from that so we will be interested to see what Treasure's stats are.

JandJ Marvel

Marvel was born at 10.05, his is Dream's second cria & we watched the birth, it was a different birth to everyone we have had. All was progressing well & we had what we thought was the nose coming through as normal but it was in fact the top of Marvel's head, so the came head out but no legs & then a minute or so later the legs came out what a relief & then the rest of a huge cria. Marvel has grown into a very handsome little alpaca no bigger than all the others & has now moved on to a new home with his brothers Nayte & Flynn.