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 Hi!
My name's Donnica. This is my baby (cria) picture. at 2 hrs. old. It felt
so good to stretch! I was cooped up inside my mom for almost
11-1/2 months.
Most crias weigh 14-20 lbs. at birth. I was a full 20 lb. As an
adult I continue to be what I like to call "large boned...with a great
personality." I've always been easy to care for. My mom (dam) provided lots of milk &
I nibbled on the pasture like my mom. In fact 5-8 of us can live on only
1 acre of pasture. When I.jpg)
was a few months older, I started eating grain & mineral mix.
For fun, my friends & I liked to romp & scamper in the
pasture, especially at sunset. We ran races & played tag. I've heard
humans laugh & say we're as fast as deer. All this bonding prepared us
for weaning.
Weaning is when our human took us away from our moms & gave us our own
pen & pasture. We really missed our moms & cried for a
week. We kept trying to get back to them. After a day or
so, our moms seemed relieved that we were gone. Four long weeks passed
on our own, until we went back to live with the dams to be "grown up",
just like them.
.jpg) After
my first birthday (12-18 months) my human set up a date for me with a
nice guy (macho) so I could have my own cria. I had to be at least 1 to
1-1/2 years old, and he had to be at least 2-1/2 to 3 years old. It was
a long 11-1/2 months but finally my female cria was born. As usual the
delivery was unassisted and took less than 30 minutes. Since an alpaca's
tongue isn't long enough to clean the cria and stimulate circulation and
muscle sensation, she was born during daylight hours on a sunny
day, as are most crias. This way Mother.jpg)
Nature helps us to get the baby going.
After rejoicing in the arrival of my daughter, my human waits 15-21 days
before setting me up on a date with a macho to create my next cria.
Alpacas live to be 20-25 years old. Most of us girls have around 18 cria
in our lifetime. There's one very special day each year when my human
hires a professional shearer and invites help to shear our fleece. This
happens in the spring.
We've each grown 4-6" of fleece which has kept us warm and cozy through
the long, cold winter. When the weather warms up, we like to get groomed
for the summer. We feel so
.jpg) much
lighter with 5-10 lbs. of fleece removed! I love to feel the warm sun
and cool breeze on my back!
My human was anxious to get my
fleece processed into yarn the first year. Boy, was she disappointed to
find there was only one custom fibre mill in Ontario and it would take
months before it could get done. Realizing the demand for more
processing availability in Ontario, my human and her sister created
"Shears
To You" Fibre Mill, Sock Manufacturing
and Wholesale.
They have lots of nice, unique items to choose from. Come see
for yourself and say hello
to
each of us.
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