Adventures in Alpaca Breeding

As I've mentioned a few times, we are moving our birthing/breeding time to June/July.  So we have been breeding our two maidens over the last month.

Alpacamundo's Apple who is truly a maiden.  She is just under 2 years old and this is her first time breeding.

Alpacamundo's Daisy has been infamously not pregnant, twice.

During the ultra-sounds we had earlier this year, our vet did a cursory exam.  He said nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary for Daisy, so we just need to make sure we finish the protocol.  Then if she's still not pregnant, we can explore other reasons why.

We paired Apple with Enchanted Sky's Charlie Brown.  Charlie is still relatively new to breeding, but he knows what to do and takes his job very seriously.

I really must get a current photo of Charlie

• They got to breeding right away the first week.
• The second week, she resisted but he was persuasive, so they bred again.
• Last week she appeared to be very convinced that she is pregnant and mostly ran around the corral and refused to cush when he would catch her.
• Yesterday, she spit straight away and then busted out of the corral.

Aside from the busting out of the corral part, this is pretty much the text book protocol.

We also paired Daisy with Blue Mesa Yoda.  Yoda is still a little young, so he's not entirely sure what's going on.

• They got to breeding right away the first week.
• The second week, she resisted but he was persuasive, so they bred again.
• Last week she wrestled Yoda to the ground.
• Yesterday, Yoda was a bit nervous while walking over to the breeding corral.  But when I put him in the corral, he decided to get to work and she cushed right away so they bred for quite a while.

I had no idea what this meant.  I fully expected her to wrestle Yoda to the ground again.  After all was finished, she hung out by the gate looking longingly toward the boys' corrals.

Our vet came by today for other reasons so we discussed our recent breeding experiences...  He suggested that we spit test Daisy again this weekend, but don't let them breed if she's receptive.  Then spit test her a second time a week later and she should spit off.

Assuming that goes as planned, we will be asking him to come back for ultrasounds in a couple of weeks.