Alpacamundo: Decisions

With cria due soon, it's time to make decisions about next year's and future breedings.

Big Thompson's Birthday last year with Daisy, Kocoa and Frieda saying Hello.

The decision of who to breed with who is pretty simple this year.  We will be breeding with three first-time herdsires.  Two of these boys were given an opportunity last year, but didn't quite know what was going on.  Now being a year older, they were very interested when I brought our open female around last Saturday.

The real decision we have is when.

We like to have our girls bred and therefore birthing around the same time.  This allows the cria to have friends to grow up with and wean together with.  Since alpacas are very social animals, this really makes it easier on everyone.  Them and us.

Daisy and Frieda are due mid-August which means they'll be ready to re-breed in early-September.  Kocoa is due mid-October and therefore ready to re-breed in early November.  Keyla is open and ready to breed now.

I originally thought we would wait and breed everyone when Kocoa is ready so we would have four cria at about the same time next year.  However, I've also been considering breeding who we can in early September.

I like the idea of having cria in late-summer rather than fall.  Especially since October is getting close to snow flying.  That way if the breedings don't take, we don't have to wait until nicer weather.

Of course, we don't have to wait.  Alpacas are like cats and can breed pretty-much anytime.  So it's really more about what works better for the human-folk and the human-folk don't like the idea of breeding and birthing in a snow storm.

The marathon season begins to ramp up in the fall which means Hubba travels more in the fall which means early-September breeding generally works better for us.

So the big reason why this decision is taking some time is that we potentially have the London Paralympics next year.  But we won't know for sure until October, at the earliest.

So, if we breed in early September, we could potentially have cria right before we leave for London, but very likely we will have to make arrangements for our late-term moms.  Of course we always make arrangements for our farm when we're away, I'd just rather not burden our normal sitter with cria-watch and neo-natal tasks.

On the other hand, if we wait until November, we will continually be having cria during our high-travel season and possibly with snow on the ground.

Of course I'll let you know what we decide.  In the meantime, our first round of cria-watch is in progress.