Poor Babies - it's Weaning Time

I've always proudly told my friends that weaning is no big deal around here. We put the moms in a different pen and the babies go about their business like nothing earth shattering just happened. Well, that was the first 6 years of weanings - not this year.
When we first separated the babies earlier this week, I predicted that Gahanna would be the biggest cry baby. He's always the one to hide behind his momma and run to her for comfort, so I made the prediction - he'd be the worst. I can't say he wasn't upset, or looked across the fence at his mom, but after a few hours, we didn't hear much out of him.
Our biggest ball baby was Buster Brown - now he's the one with the strongest most independent personality. When I'm out tidying up the field, he's the one to come over to see what I'm doing. He's often in the barn alone scouting around when mom's out in the pasture. He was the latest baby to arrive this year - about 7 weeks after our first and he already out-weighs him by several pounds. So I didn't have a worry in the world about Buster - wrong.
It's 4 days later now and all the kiddos are doing better, including Buster but it still makes me sad to see what these little ones have to go through.
If you are worried about the moms, don't be. They seem pretty happy to have their freedom. I can still honestly say, I've never had a momma that pined over their weaned baby.

Welcome to our world of Alpacas & Fiber

I've been saying for a while now, it's time I started a blog. People are always asking me about the alpacas and how they are doing, so here you go - a blog devoted to the little critters and their fiber and all the good things that can be done with it.

We've been involved with alpacas for about 8 years now - our first purchase being 3 males. That's not the typical starting point for most folks getting into alpacas, but with my love of fiber, I wanted to see if they were all that and more. Well, it didn't take long to decide that we loved them every bit as much as everyone told us we would. Now we have in the neighborhood of 30 animals and they still brighten every day of our lives.
This is Hope - the last cria born on our farm for 2009. We called her Hope because she was the last hope we had for a girl. 2009 was a banner year for boys - we had 6 in a row before Hope came along. Hope has 2 little brown spots on her right side. She inherited them from her mom - she has the same spot smack dab in the middle of her back.