The Parasites We Love…
That is the term of endearment around these parts for our crias as they approach 6 months of age and continue, often without real need or cause, to suck valuable calories off of their dear mothers. While we know that there are many alpaca folks out there who wean based upon a cria’s weight, we prefer to wait until our crias are about 6 months old for a couple of reasons. First, is the reality that taking a younger baby from it’s dam — and it should be noted that when we wean here, the crias leave and physically go to another barn, out of sight, sound, and smell of their dams — in mid-winter, before the cria is emotionally mature enough to handle that separation, can be a real recipe for stress and a subsequently sick cria (been there, done that). Second, is the fact that by waiting to wean until the (not so) little farts are at least 6 months of age, their dams are usually fairly chill about having their babies taken away from them, if not downright celebratory at times. I kid you not: a couple of years ago, we had an entire feed group of females at the Arena start pronking around the drylot for the first time in months, less than an hour after all of their crias had been weaned!
This spring, in a sign of our relatively condensed 2014 birthing season, there are really only a handful of weaners yet to leave their moms’ sides up at the Arena. The final 4 will in fact be weaned when they are shorn at the end of next month. This also means that Jen and Kim have been busy training the 28 or so members of last year’s birth class that have been drafted into the upcoming spring show string.
Mother Nature, as is her way, gave us a bit of false hope a few weeks back with some beautiful sunny and mild days in the upper 40s. Yours truly was so inspired, that I even trudged around the back side of our garage on one of those evenings to access our still snowed-in grill. Because, you know, it was time to welcome in Spring, right? What a sucker I was! None of that lasted long and until yesterday Jen, Kim, and to a much lesser extent, myself (it pays at such times to not, um, specialize in our initial round pen training we do with all of the our new recruits), were bundling up in multiple layers to train the new weaners in sub 20 degree weather, replete with a stiff northwest wind most days. A thrill a minute, I assure you. The good news, is that with exactly a week to go before we head off to the North American show in Springfield, MA, we have made considerable progress. Even the most stubborn of our new trainees is walking at least begrudgingly on a sort-of slack (slackish, slacky, slakerish?) lead. That said, you can be sure that the arrival of more mild weather since yesterday, is still most welcome for all of us that will be spending the next 6 days marching up and down the hill with show critters in tow!
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