Mini me

Felicia & Luminaria

What an end to our amazing Sunday

JandJ Belle

By the time I arrived home I had 2 new little cria to go & look at. Martin had been busy all day with the new arrivals & also been keeping a very close eye on Luminaria who had been coughing & salivating for part of the day. We decided to call the vet out as it looked like choke, something lodged in her throat which she could not clear. The vet came within an hour. 

While we were stood with Lumi waiting for him, we were watching Nell very closely, as she appeared to be in labour, she is a first timer but a birth after 4pm is a little late for a cria to be born. The vet came & sorted out Lumi's choke, while he was doing this I was concentrating on Nell who appeared to be struggling with the birth. There is a 20 minute rule with alpaca births, as long as there is a progression in 20 mins you do not intervene. Unfortunately, the little cria's head seemed to be stuck half way out, perfect timing for the vet to be there, he said that Nell's contractions seemed to have stopped. So with the help of some gel he eased the little cria out. This is the latest birth we have had at 5.15pm. 
Nell's nickname is Nellibell, so of course her little female cria is called Belle. Belle is tiny, the smallest cria we have had (we thought Sparkle was tiny last year) & we have had problems with her not gaining weight. We did think that the fault lay with her mum & her milk, but we are not sure about that at the moment. Belle is feeding off Nell & we are topping her up with bottles of goats milk. Unlike our lambs, when we feed Belle she does not come running for her bottle but tends to try & run in the opposite direction. She is the cutest little alpaca.

Wow we have a white girl

JandJ Felicia

I am a little late in posting this 2 weeks ago when the weather cooled for Saturday & Sunday all the due girls gave birth.

It started on Saturday with the arrival of Felicia, she is Luminaria's 6th cria & very special being a girl. We really like our coloured alpacas but it's fantastic to have another white, out of our 100 alpacas we only have 4. Lumi has had Felix, Kasper, Luminessence, Frazer, Flynn & now Felicia, Felix Kasper & Flynn have been sold & we were very upset last year as Esse developed a vertebrae problem & we lost her. This year Frazer has been promoted to a stud male & we have mated him with Mississippi, a very unlikely union of white & black, so we wait until next year to see what colour their cria will be, I think probably it will be black but a multi would be fabulous.

Felicia is a gorgeous little cria very gentle just like her mum but very inquisitive & really friendly. This year we seem to have very friendly, brave little alpacas, all come up to see us & want our attention.

Lana, Luminaria & Clementine

Couldn't resist taking this photo, my pale colours together!

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.