Cria Update - They're Growing Like Weeds!

The crias are growing like weeds. Phoenix will be five months old on November 4th - that's only two weeks away! He has been showing interest in the females already and while he cannot get them pregnant, he is "practicing" on a regular basis and really irritating some of them. He can be weaned at five months so I will probably put him in with Spencer (who will be a year old on October 30th) until they have bonded and then I'll turn them out with the small group of younger/calmer males to see if I can integrate them safely into that group.

Here is a recent photo of Phoenix.

Rosie is growing fast, too. She is now four months old so I will be able to wean her in a month but her mother usually weans her babies on her own so I'm hoping Rosie can just stay in with the female herd and the transition will be a smooth one. I notice that her mother is allowing her to nurse less and less so she is probably already starting to dry up.

Here is a photo I took a couple of days ago. I just love Rosie's face! Look at those dark circles around her eyes. And her darker muzzle. And those fuzzy ears!

 

Autumn has grown a lot. She is four weeks old today and is looking awesome. Her fiber is very lustrous and silky and I hope it stays that way.

And look at her face! Is that not adorable?!

And then I got a really cute photo of Rosie and Autumn together. They were watching Courtney, one of our cats, on the other side of the fence.

And here is the newest little male who is eight days old today. I think we're going to call him Time Traveler because his grandsire is Tempis Fugit (latin for Time Flies) and his sire is Viajero (Spanish for Traveler).

 And we are still waiting for Dazzle to have her cria. And that should be the last one for this year. If Dazzle gets much bigger, she's going to explode!

Cria update

Our newest little cria is growing stronger every day. We're pretty sure she was born at least a week to 10 days early because she was so weak and her ligaments were so soft when she was born. However, she is running around the pastures now and making new friends. She and Rosie are quickly becoming BFF's.

Here are Rosie and Autumn Shadow - they are about three months apart.

And here is a photo of Phoenix taken today - he is now almost four months old.

We have two more females that are due any time now. Here is Dazzle, who is pretty much taking things in stride, just lounging around eating. It looks like she has swallowed a basketball (or two)

And then there is Dee - who is not the least bit happy about how she feels right now. Her ears are almost always back like this lately.

 

Dee doesn't look as big as Dazzle does but it is because Dee hasn't been sheared so her wool covers her baby bump. And, Dee is larger and has more capacity than Dazzle so she doesn't show quite as much as Dazzle. Which one will deliver first?

And, another photo of little Autumn

Thank you for visiting Split Rock Ranch!

Rosie is looking awesome!

Split Rock Champagne & Pearls, aka "Rosie" (I was going to name her Roses, Champagne & Pearls because she looked pink when she was born but that name is SO big, we just decided to call her Rosie and shortened the name to C&P) is now almost three months old and is growing up nicely. Her fiber is not as pencil locked as it was when she was born but we're hoping the lock structure tightens up as she ages. And, her fiber is this incredible champagne color now with silver and dark gray points.

Cria and Goat Update

Sorry its been awhile (again) since I posted but I've been super busy around the ranch and keeping up with the auction for my niece on Facebook.

I wanted to share some additional photos of the little Nigerian Dwarf goat kids I got recently. These little guys were both born in April so they are a little over three months old now.

This is Gladiator

And this is Darrel

They LOVE to climb and jump on things. I put this ramp up to the top of their house and they love to run up it and then jump off and run back to do it again and again and again.

Today when I went out to check on things, I found the two of them curled up sleeping in the shade on top of the chicken run. Darrel was asleep on the tarp at one end and Gladiator was curled up sleeping on board that I have sitting on top of the run to protect the opening into the chicken coop from rain. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me and as soon as they realized I was outside, they woke up and jumped off, running to me to say hello. They follow me everywhere like little puppies. They even wag their tails like a dog! They really are very cute. Sometimes annoying...but cute.

And here are some updated photos of Phoenix and Rosie. They are grazing while Rosie's momma, Minnie Pearl, is resting.

And here is Phoenix with his half sister Dazzle (they have the same dam) drinking out of a puddle after the rain.

And here is Rosie, posing for me. I finally managed to get several great photos of her standing still!! We are more and more impressed with Rosie every day. She has such incredible fiber and the color is awesome. Her personality is absolutely precious. We just love her!

We should have at least one more cria in late September/early October. Dazzle is bred to our silver ALSA Halter Champion, Tempis Fugit.

 

Sorry, she was very busy eating and drinking!

Reflecting on a Llama Legend

Okay, so Midnight Hour probably isn't a legend in the rest of the world but in our world he was quite the man! I have been thinking over the past few days since Midnight passed away, trying to remember all of his offspring and who has them now. We only used him as a stud 9 times and got 6 females and 3 males. Only one of those males is still intact, the other two have been gelded. All of his daughters have been sold - leaving us with only one male out of Midnight Hour, Kemui Yama. Kemui has already started following in his sire's footsteps in the show ring. He took first place in his class, Grand Champion in his Division and Reserve Best in Show the first time we showed him.

So, a walk down memory lane - Midnight Hour's offspring:

Midnight Kachina

Mustang Sally

Midnight Rhapsody

 

Caballero Rojo (Red)

 

Gypsy Rose

Midnight's Amazing Grace

Midnight Moonbeam

 

Midnight's Kemui Yama

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Big sister, Belle, checking out new baby brother, Chocolate Chip.

Clementine's first cria - Willie B Goode

This is Clementine's first cria - a male we named Willie B Goode. This photo is a scan of a snapshot we took almost ten years ago so the quality isn't that good, but since I found it I wanted to post it - I didn't even realize I had a photo of Willie.

Llamas 101.2

This is Clementine, our first female llama.

Last week I talked about how we got into llamas and about our first llamas. Since then comments have been left about the female llamas. So, this week's post is about the female llamas. Several months after we moved to Split Rock Ranch we decided that we wanted one female because we thought the babies, called "crias" were so adorable. We found a young female named Clementine who was already bred and was due the next summer. We bought her and brought her home to live with us. The gestation period for a llama is 345 days but anything from 340 to 370 days is considered "normal". We have had llamas go 375 days from a known breeding date before delivering a normal healthy cria. It was exciting and educational preparing for our first cria. We built a little shelter (which they never used) in the corner of the newly fenced in llama pen and put straw into the shelter and anxiously awaited the birth. Of course, she gave birth while we were at work/school so we missed the big event. Llamas general give birth only during the daylight hours. We have only had one evening birth (approximately 8 pm) and she had been in labor most of the day so she just didn't get the cria delivered before it got dark.

Crias are usually up and nursing and running around within an hour of birth. The momma llamas are generally very protective and attentive to their new crias, rarely letting them get very far away for the first few weeks. After that first few weeks, they get less and less anxious about their crias going exploring. We try to plan the breedings in our herd so that the females deliver within a few weeks of each other so that the crias have other babies to play with. It is so much fun to watch them run and jump and play together out in the pasture.

We have also discovered that raising the crias is a group effort. Our gelding watches the crias while the moms graze and when the crias go find their mommas to nurse, only then does he relax and rest. For the mommas who have had girls and then other crias, the "big sister" spends a lot of time with the new cria. We had a female die when her baby was 14 weeks old. The older sister took over for momma. She couldn't nurse her little sister but she ate with her, slept with her, hung out with her and did everything else a momma would do. Both of these girls have grown up and become excellent mommas themselves. When danger is sensed, the entire herd will gather together and keep the crias in the center of the herd.

Crias are generally weaned after at least 5 months of being with their mother. Sometimes the momma starts the weaning process herself, pushing the cria away and only allowing them to nurse first thing in the morning and later in the day (more to keep themselves from getting too bagged up and uncomfortable than for any other reason I think.) We base our weaning on how the cria is progressing. If they are smaller and momma is still letting them nurse frequently, we leave them together. We also wean the babies at the same time so they have a familiar buddy to hang with during the stressful weaning process. It is far more stressful on the cria than it is on the momma! By that time most of the mommas are glad to be rid of a cria following them around begging to nurse.

One more thing I want to cover in this post. Another common question about llamas is "do they spit?" The answer is yes, but generally only at other llamas and only when their space has been invaded or over food disputes or territorial disputes. They rarely spit at humans unless you are doing something that is painful or aggravating to the llama (brushing really hard and pulling their fiber, giving shots, etc.) A well socialized llama will very seldom spit at a human. Dogs bite and cats scratch - I would prefer being spit on by a llama to being bitten or scratched any day! I've had a rabbit lay the end of my finger open and a horse take off half the flesh on one of my fingers - I'll take spit any day over those unfortunate events! And, llamas will give warning signals prior to spitting - they will lay their ears back (think of a dog growling or a cat hissing) and if you ignore that signal they will make a clicking noise prior to actually spitting. Anyone who ignores those signals has deserved a well placed spit wad.

More coming next week on llamas 101.__

Llamas - 101.1

I recently had a request to post more about llamas. Apparently we are the only blog on Entrecard that has llamas so I'm going to do a once-a-week series on llamas. Let me know if you have any specific questions that you'd like to have me address and I'll put those in future posts.

I'll start with what most people ask about llamas - "What do you do with a llama?"

I'll start the list with why we got into llamas:

Llamas make excellent companions.
Llamas make excellent pack animals.
Llamas are excellent fiber producers.
Llamas make our life complete.

We bought our first llama in November 1996 - a two and a half month old llama whose mother passed away when he was about 8 weeks old. He was being bottle fed by the owners, who were also caring for another orphaned cria so the two crias were kept together and bottle fed correctly without handling or talking or unnecessary intervention. Bottle fed crias can develop "berserk male syndrome" later in life and become dangerous because they view humans as a llama and can become aggressive.

Our first llama is named Handel. I fell in love with this cria from across the ranch the first time I saw him (his mother was still alive at that time). But, he was far more expensive than we had budgeted for a llama so I kept going back to Stage Stop Llamas to look at other llamas, searching for "The One" in our price range. On one of our trips back to Stage Stop, I saw Handel in the barn and asked about him and was told that his mother had died suddenly and I asked again what his price was and the owners agreed to sell him to us for the price we were looking to pay. I was thrilled! We boarded him at Stage Stop until we bought our house in May 1997 and brought him and our second llama, Nimbus - a 4 year old large male that we thought would make an excellent pack llama, to live with us at our place.

Little did we know at the time that our llama journey would expand and change our lives the way it did.

More next time on Llamas - 101._

Wordless Wednesday

More Cria Photos

This photo was taken in July 2007. These crias are pretty close in age. The first one born was Dusty Rose, the white cria on the right in front. The second one born (two weeks later) was Chocolate Chip (aka Mr. C - for CUTE), the appaloosa cria on the right in back. Then five hours after Mr. C was born came Argentum, the gray cria on the left. I can't believe these little ones will be two in a few months! Time sure does fly. We only had two crias born on the ranch last summer and this summer there will be no crias. We have cut way back on breeding due to the economy, sagging sales, etc. and we want to be sure that all the crias we produce will have wonderful homes (we still have all three of these guys and they are looking so wonderful. I already have the first shearing fleeces from Argentum and Mr. C reserved for a hand spinner in Arizona. She came to visit me last summer and fell in love with the fleeces on these boys. It was too late in the summer to shear them last year so I will shear them for her next month (providing the weather cooperates).

Wordless Wednesday

Black Pearl

 

Here's our newest addition to the Split Rock Ranch llama herd. Born May 20, 2008. A black male that we named Black Pearl (his mom is Minnie Pearl). Photos of Black Pearl right after birth and at one month. He's such a curious and friendly little guy. I actually got pics of the entire birth but don't want to post those here - they're pretty graphic! Hopefully Tia will have a cria soon so BP has someone to play with.

Final Cria-tion of 2007 - A Suri Cria!!

Here's the final cria at Split Rock Ranch for 2007 - a gorgeous male suri cria! We haven't named him yet - anybody have any suggestions? His Dam is Charisma and his Sire is Suri Solution ( a suri mini male owned by Stage Stop Llamas). We were hoping for a mini llama - Suri Solution is a mini and Charisma is a foundation mini (she was a mini until she reached 3.5 years of age and then she grew another inch, making her a foundation mini llama). But this boy weighed 25 pounds when born! He has the most unusual coloring - his face is definitely gray - his ears are gray with white on them, his feet are gray with white hairs overlaying - and the rest of him is... I hate the use of the color "taupe" to describe this llama - that is soooo dull and boring and his coloring is anything BUT boring! I'm thinking it is more of a rose gray color - and the luster is spectacular! This is the first cria we have had born at night. Charisma was in labor all day long and didn't deliver him until about 7:30 PM. We rushed out with towels and a cria coat that I had tumbled in the dryer to warm them up, and whisked mom and baby into the warm enclosure of our stock trailer (fully enclosed except for open at the top of the back doors), dried the cria off, put on the cria coat and put a dim nightlight in one of the mangers so they could see, filled a large bucket with fresh hay for Momma and left them to bond overnight. The next morning, Mom and Cria were resting and it was snowing so I left them in the trailer all day. When I got home from work, it was nice and sunny and warm so I put them back into the girls' pasture and all the girls and other crias welcomed the new cria into the herd. The new little guy jumped and ran and stretched his new little legs. These photos were taken the next morning.

New Crias (Baby Llamas)

Here are Midnight Moonbeam (white cria - center left) and Dusty Rose (creamy silver cria - center right) Moonbeam, aka The Beamer, was born on Friday May 25th. He is only 10 days older than Dusty Rose but look at the difference in size and posture. Once Dusty Rose completely "unfolds" she will look more like Moonbeam. She looks "dirty" but she is actually a very unusual creamy silver gray with peachy rose gray highlights.




Here is our newest addition to Split Rock Ranch. Dusty Rose was born Sunday, June 3, 2007. The above photo was taken when Dusty Rose was about 24 hours old. She is getting a llama kiss from her Aunt Jewell. The entire herd shares in caring for the crias - they will completely surround the cria when danger is sensed or perceived. Our older females will "prong" only when there are new babies - and then once they've taught the llama babies to prong, you generally will not see them prong again until there is another baby to teach.



We will post additional photos as these babies grow. We have two more crias due any day now so visit again to see more info.