Lansing Harbor Fest Rocks!

It was yet another fabulous year of the Lansing Harbor Fest...it was a gorgeous day with lots of sunshine...a little humid but everyone was having so much fun it didn't dampen the mood! Each year there are more and more exciting exhibits...this year it was the Verve booth that got us going! We had energy drinks and raised money for the Lansing swim team. It is a great product and worth considering if you need a little healthy jumpstart!

The alpacas fared well for the day but left a little early due to the heat. Liberty and Yu lo were very courteous and enjoyed all the festival goers. People got a chance to see some of the handmade alpaca products that can be found at the Angel Tree Farm Alpacas Farm store and see what incredible things can be done with alpaca fiber!

Back to Back Babies!

It was quite an end to the breeding season on Angel Tree this year. We were surprised again and again this year...and again on Sunday (Aug. 16th)...to find a beautiful black male cria...and again on Saturday... we found a long awaited little white female cria. It has truly been a year of surprises. It has made it so much easier on the stress level of WAITING...which alpaca people know can drag on for days with dozens of trips to the barn a day...watching and waiting for a pending birth. We have been blessed that the births have been uneventful and independent. Yeah!

That is the beauty of alpacas...natural birthers and natural mom's! When we started in the alpaca business we would aniticipate the pending births with angst and now it has become a momentary thrill and then we calmly go about the rituals of prepping the cria for life on the farm. Now we have two more added to the herd...and to watch grow. No names yet :-)

The Three B's

It was an exciting and exhausting day on the farm today...we had the three B's. It started off with a Birth, then a Burial and ended with Breedings! The birth was an unexpected twelve days early and delivered a healthy male cria (yet to be named!). The death was of one of our beloved old girls...Feliz. It was not a complete surprise as she has been showing signs of age for some time now. She delivered an adorable male cria (Rudy) earlier in the season who is adjusting to not having mom around. Abby the guard llama has taken him under her wing and he is doing fine. It will be strange to go to the barn and not see Feliz there with a mouth full of hay. It was a sad day. You think your aged alpacas will live forever on the farm as a "pet" but one day they die...that day came earlier than we had thought but she is resting now.
The day ended up with a few alpacas going for a drive in the trailer to breedings...then back home to the farm !
It was a day that showed...literally...the circle of life on the farm.

And then there was...JUSTICE!

We returned from our vacation in Indiana just in the nick of time...or so my farm-sitting-nephew Kyle and mother/father think!

We were down at the barn when we noticed front feet and a head...coming from Abby our female guard llama. Abby continued to walk around the pasture for about 20 minutes or so before getting the sensation to push. (The intermittent rain and downpour didn't phase her). The baby came out nicely on it's own... and so considerate and perfectly timed that we could all watch. My parents, Mal and Ellie even had time to finish their breakfast and still got there in time to see the eventual birth! We watched Abby, who is a natural mom, wander around the pasture and stall as she passed the after birth and allowed us to do our usual birthing procedures...drying, weighing (a whopping 27.5 lbs!), temp...(a perfect 100.3), dipping the umbilical cord and putting on the cria coat. Then we wait as the two rested, attempted walking and the eventual nursing. Abby is a gentle giant and loves her babies...and only gave us the occasional warning spit...of only air! She knows we love her and we were helping.

As we stood watching this incredible act of birth...we talked about "Liberty" Abby's cria from last year and decided this one should be appropriately know as "Justice" for Liberty (female) and "Justice" (Male). Liberty is a gorgeous female grey and white llama that has stolen the show...from the alpacas on the farm. She is the first to approach the fence line and offer"kisses' to a passerby. Justice will hopefully follow in his sister's footsteps. He is a beautiful grey, white and light brown llama. It is exciting to watch as they turn from not-so ugly ducklings into princes and princesses! Join us on the adventure, drive by or follow on the blog as we watch them grow!

And baby makes 5!

I was casually working across the road when my parents happened by and asked if ..."we had a baby?" I was shocked only to cross the street and see as they saw...a young cria under a new mom! It was Joy standing in the pasture with a cria suckling under her. It was her cria...a little over a week early and the spitting image of her! It was a male that was criated out of our very own Marcus. It was thier first pairing and her first male cria after two females. This new young male will make a beautiful herdisre for the farm someday (we don't have any brown herdsires!). Although each cria born to the farm makes you think about another alpaca for the farm. But as my husband says...everything is for sale...and we are geting up there in numbers...and continue to sell a few here and there! We now stand at 30 alpacas on the farm. Three left to go this season...2 alpacas and 1 llama. One alpaca is due this week. We have been fortunate that most of the cria this season have arrived unannounced and healthy. This is far less stressfull than past birthing seasons where we spent the summer on "cria watch"...there is no way to desribe the agony of it! For today we are thankful and with each birth we fall in love with alpacas again!

Got Water???

Yes, it is that time of year. Any alpaca farmer knows that it is a big day om the farm when the pools come out! Well Joy could not wait...she literally followed me down the pasture when my son Tyler and I began putting out pools. She could not wait and quickly jockeyed into position in the pool...then proceeded to defend her spot in the pool. She is a "pool lover" there are also alpacas who have absolutley no interest in the "alpaca pool"...but prefer to be sprayed! The pools are wonderful but need maintenance...dumping, cleaning and monitoring when there are cria about! We don't tend to put them in a pasture when there are cria in it...but move the mom and cria to a different pasture and back once the cria is able to be near a pool and the herd. Even though it only contains a few inches...one never takes chances with new cria. ;-) PS: the next day she had a beautiful male cria!

Saturday Surprise!

Well, we were going about your average Saturday...when I saw my husband Jay in a fast canter up from the girls barn...with that look that says "we've got a baby!" There is nothing like the excitement of a cria birth on the farm!

We have been looking at each other for the past few weeks and saying NO Way is Lacey going to make it TWO months! But I had double checked my records and checked the gestation tables and yes....that was the calculated date...but I knew Sat. when I saw him running up (in a controlled way) from the barn that we had a baby...and when I met him half way I called out...Lacey had her baby didn't she? The answer was yes! Any alpaca breeder will tell you that we alpaca breeders know our due dates! We plan, we calculate... select or herdsires, we check... we chart and we re-check. In looking back over my records the only thing we can figure is that last season she went down, bred and we calculated based on the last breeding...when in actuality an earlier breeding took? This makes you wonder...was she just in the mood? Enough of that, we could be here all night discussing the breeding habits of male and female alpacas, their breeding habits etc...!

Well I am sure you are curious at this point...the cria and mom were fine, healthy, up and enjoying HER Saturday! Yes she is a beautiful white female weighing in at 16.5 lbs. Not bad and the best part...no waiting, no butt watching and pre-delivery stress. Alpaca breeders will actually drive themselves crazy watching the expectant mother...for days, hours, minutes, and even seconds. Literally staring at the alpaca's butt, it is as if if we watch hard enough... a tiny head will peek out from under the tail and say "Hi, I'm here". Of course everyone wants to be around for the birth of the cria's on the farm in the event they really DO need our help:-) ON this day we were blessed.

All kidding aside it is the first unobserved birth where I have found the mother with slightly bloodied teats. I think she may have actually nipped at her own teats to "unplug" her teats as we alpaca farmers deem necessary :-) A quick clean up with a sterile wash and all is normal. The two are fine...and did it all by themselves. Imagine that. This Saturday had a happy ending. It was after all "D Day" and in honor of D Day and our surprise we have named her ATFA's Normandy "Mandy" for short.

(We will let you know if someone on the farm just can't live with "Mandy")