We had a surprise cria! (picts)

[Chirpy]

Earlier this spring I got two new female llamas. The lady told me, as I was getting ready to load them on the truck, that they were both pregnant - that it had been an accident as her males had gotten out of the fence and gotten to the females. She said they were due in early April. That was really important to know so I'm glad she told me. I like to be on cria watch when my girls are due to give birth so that I can make sure everything goes ok and the babies aren't left out in the pasture at night with the coyotes around here.

Well, April came and went, so did May and June so I figured she was just wrong or that the boys didn't actually get to the girls.

I thus tried to breed both females with a male that I brought in last month. They wanted nothing to do with him and he had absolutely zero interest in either of them. (Whereas he about climbed the fence to get to all my other girls!) Male and female llamas know when they are pregnant. They won't breed if they are already pregnant. If they truly aren't pregnant then they think they are and that usually means the female has a retained CL (aren't you just loving learning about all this llama stuff?

) If you treat a female for a retained CL you cause her to abort any tissue retained from a previous pregnancy. I decided not to treat either of them as it seemed very odd that they both were acting the same way. I would much rather go another year without crias than to take the chance and end a pregnancy. And, knowing the lady that they came from I knew it wasn't impossible that they might actually be pregnant. Since a llamas gestation is 11 1/2 months they could deliver up to next January without my knowing they were bred!

Three days ago I looked out to the pasture to check on the llamas and saw a tight circle of llamas. That either means there's a predator around (I didn't see anything) or something really interesting is happening. I hustled out and found one of those two females giving birth!! I'm so excited. Everything went great and we have a new, absolutely adorable (they always are) little girl cria.

Thought I'd share my story and some pictures of our newest addition:

She's just a few minutes old here and meeting her Aunts and Uncle...

An hour old and figuring out how those long things attached to her body work...

One day old...

 

[silkieluvr]

Oh my goodness!!! Cutest cria I have ever seen!

 

[ozark hen]

Isn't she the cutest thing?

Thank you so much for sharing this event. What have you named her?

 

[MissPrissy]

How cute. How do you manage a herd and how do they help pay for themselves?

 

[Cabe]

SOOOOO CUTE!

 

[amyquilt]

What an absolute cutie!

 

[okiemommy]

She's absolutely beautiful!

 

[DouglasPeeps]

Quote:
I was thinking the same thing.

She is beautiful! I didn't know you had llamas.

 

[Chirpy]

Ozark hen asked:

What have you named her?

I think it's going to be Taja. I am using the first initial of the momma's name to name each cria so I always know what line they came from. However, momma's name is Calamity and I have two other females with "K" names so I wanted to get away from the hard "C" sound. Thus, I'm going to use the Calami "T"y sound and give her crias names starting with "T"s.

MissPrissy and DouglasPeeps asked:

How do you manage a herd and how do they help pay for themselves?

Ha, ha, ha, ha! Well, my purpose for getting into llamas was to raise the male offspring for packers. I want to train them and sell them to people who do back country packing or hunting. The reason I laugh ... over the last three years I've had six crias. All six are females! My herd is certainly growing but I've got no males to train and sell to help with the income side of this endeavor. Because a llamas gestation is so long and they should be a year old (ish) before serious training starts and I will need to train them for a good year or two before selling them... nothing happens fast with them.

I do have plenty of pasture (40 acres) for them and they can eat off the land most of the year here, so I don't have to put a lot of money into hay. They "use" the grass far more efficiently than a horse does, nutritionally. They also don't damage grass as horses do so it recovers very quickly. Llamas tend to nibble on the grass and they are constantly moving around so they don't wear down one area. They are certainly not expensive to keep (in my situation), although my herd has grown larger, faster than I figured without having boys to sell off.

I can train and sell the females as they make excellent packers also. But, since they have more value as breeding stock few people actually use them as packers. I'm thinking about that - we'll wait to see what I get next year for crias.

Considering that most large llama/alpaca farms pray for girls and hope for at least a 50/50 boy - girl ratio each year; I've certainly got that beat. I'm 100% girls.​

 

[MissPrissy]

Do you have to sheer them? Can their fibers be used to spin for yarn or felting etc?