2020 Cria Calendar

It’s spring and that means the crias are coming! I absolutely love having births on the farm and I cannot wait for our crias to arrive.

Alpaca pregnancies take forever to complete. A female alpaca will be pregnant anywhere from 335 to 359 days. There have been extremes pregnancies of up to 386 days, but those are rare. As a mom of two, I cannot imagine being pregnant for that long!

Our cria calendar below is a summary of what we have happening for this year’s mommas.

Our 2020 Cria Calendar

Ariana

Ariana is our first mom to deliver and her cria will arrive this month. Ariana tends to get very crabby towards the end of her pregnancy. Thankfully we bring treats, so she tolerates us long enough to get her evening snack. Our other ladies are a month to three months behind her and they have not yet entered into that severe crabby zone.

But honestly, when you think of the length of pregnancy, who could blame Ariana for being crabby?! She is pregnant for almost an entire year. And as soon as she delivers, she wants to become pregnant again. We hold her off for weeks and we enjoy those weeks immensely. When Ariana has a new cria and is waiting for her new mating, she is ever so sweet and lovely. Or relatively speaking. Ariana isn’t our most friendly alpaca, but she and Royal Gold do make lovely crias together.

Last year’s birth was a difficult one for Ariana and she had to have assistance. We are hoping for a much easier time this year, so she can immediately enjoy her new baby.

Stormy

Sadly, alpaca breeding isn’t full proof and we’ve already had a loss. Stormy delivered a stillbirth cria last week. It was her first pregnancy and she seemed to have struggled the entire time.

Stormy is normally a friendly alpaca that will jump around with excitement when she sees me approaching. But not while pregnant. She seemed to be in a constant daze and I could tell the pregnancy was taking its toll.

Thankfully, we do not believe Stormy was even aware of the loss. If this was a seasoned mom, she would have to understand the loss and that would have been heartbreaking. Stormy was simply tired and she rebounded quickly in just two days.

Dolly

Dolly is on her first pregnancy and this has been a challenging one. Dolly has an infection in her jaw and we’ve been working with two vets to keep her as healthy as possible so she can complete her pregnancy. So far we’ve been able to manage it fairly well.

Once Dolly delivers we’ll need to obtain an x-ray of her jaw bone so we can determine the next steps in her treatment. It’s been a long few months with Dolly and her ongoing care. She is a very docile alpaca so she has been very good about all the hands-on activity with her.

Her personality is excellent, she is cute as a button, and she has high-quality fiber, so we truly hope we can resolve her jaw issue. I’d love for her to deliver a healthy cria and for her to have another twenty years with us on the farm.

Kalista and Attie

Both Kalista and Attie are seasoned mommas and they have had zero issues with their pregnancies. Kalista has given birth to an award-winning female named Sienna, so we are excited to see what she had Elk Jacob produce.

Attie is a rose grey alpaca and will for sure provide us with another unique coloring. Her daughter Indie is a beautiful silver grey and we hope to have another cria just like her.

Indie and Reba

Both Indie and Reba are first-time moms and both are managing their pregnancies well. We see no issues and all signs point to healthy crias arriving in June and September.

Vin

Vin is our mystery girl. We didn’t think her pregnancy took since Edison wasn’t a proven herdsire. He was so uninterested in the whole process that his owners asked if they could try and breed Vin to spark his interest. Edison showed up with a face full of hay, kept it in the entire time, and apparently, did his job as planned.

Much to our excitement, good old Edison produced a pregnancy, and Vin is due this September. Vin is 100% Accoyo and has amazing dense fiber, so we are really looking forward to seeing the cria she produces.

Follow Us for More Updates

I’ll keep our Facebook page updated with pictures, so feel free to head on over and like the page, so you can stay up to date with our cria adventures.

You can also scroll down the page and subscribe to our newsletter. I send out updates when new articles are posted.