I'm going to talk about alpaca breeding because I think the whole alpaca thing is so interesting. First of all, you must realize that alpacas are induced ovulators which means they won't ovulate until conditions are right. The conditions are, or so I understand, that the male must penetrate her and while he is doing that, he orgles. The orgle is a loud, gurgling sound that the guy makes the whole time he is with his woman. The mating itself may go on for half an hour or so and the whole time, he is doing his orgling thing. It may take a long time because he is a dribbler, not a spurter. :-)The reason I'm mentioning this today is because we have been trying to get a breeding on Celeste and Ariana, so every morning this week one of them have gone over to visit Alde, our visiting stud. We aren't having much luck. If the female is ready, she will cush (like little Orion is doing in the picture above). If not ready or pregnant, she supposedly will spit at him, maybe kick, and run off. Neither of the girls are doing this, but they just won't go down for him.
We are definitely amateur breeders and are getting frustrated. I guess there is about a two week period when their receptivity raises and falls. I think we need to be patient for another week or so.
Update on the two girls who are off to be bred - haven't heard from Lady Belita in Jackson, but Sonata, at Belding, probably is bred and will be ultrasounded soon. We're hoping - that's with Tribute, the handsome gray guy with incredibly fine fiber.
The picture above is of Orion and mom, Ariana, just an hour after birth. Alpacas don't lick or clean their cria up like many animals but let them dry off naturally. This makes me think of another fun fact to know and shout. They normally have their cria in the morning or before 1 or 2. The theory on this is that in the mountains (Andes) of South America, it gets very cold at night and to survive the newborn needs that sun of daytime to dry off and warm up.
Later in the day. Hmmm, this probably WAS "too much information" . Sorry, I guess I just got carried away but, like I said, I find the whole process incredibly interesting and sometimes assume that the whole world wants to know what I know........and then the teaching genes just kick in.
