Boys, boys, boys

Ever since we started breeding alpacas we have always managed to have more female that male cria but this year we have only had two girls so far.  One of them was born to an alpaca we had just sold but which is staying here for a while!!  It is not a problem for the business because we can usually sell off young males as pets, sheep/chicken  guards, lawn mowers etc:  They are the bread and butter side of the business which cover our running costs and selling our quality breeding females is where we make most of our profit.

We were away at a dog Agility Competition at the weekend and we did not leave until about 3 p.m. after checking that none of the imminently due females looked like giving birth, but at about 7 p.m. Jose (camper) phoned to say that a cria must have been born about an hour previously as they had been out for about that time.  She said it was very pretty and seemed OK.   We phoned Nick who called in to check.  He reported that it was another boy, healthy and suckling from its Mum so all was well.

When we got home this evening we had a look at him and he is indeed a very attractive fawn.

Dolly had a lovely time playing with her brother and going for several walks a day instead of amusing herself when we are busy.  She was much admired and is now the proud bearer of a bright pink collar and lead.   Well she is a girly.

A lady in the next village has two alpacas that she needs to sell in a hurry.   We went to have a look at them as one is decended from Wiracochas Dream who was a champion alpaca in his time.  She did not want much money for them but as one is a multi we did not feel they were worth us buying them even though they were very cheap.   She phoned on Friday to say that they had been unable to sell them and that they are now free to a good home so we are going to collect them tomorrow.  They have not been shorn so that is the first thing we will have to do as they must be very hot.  More boys - let's hope we can move them all on.

We do have a possible market for quite a few young males but as it is all still in the pipeline and depends on financing, we are not counting our chickens or alpacas.  When the possibility was first mentioned we had no young males at all, but now we have quite a few coming on, so we hope that the deal goes through in which case everything will have spookily worked out well for us yet again.