Soft Breeze Has a Girl!

Finally! After years of giving us male after male, Soft Breeze gave birth to a female cria. This November, Breeze will be seventeen years old. That's not prime breeding age for the average alpaca female, but our old lady is in excellent condition.

Not surprisingly, the birth was quick and easy, even judged by the standards of a much younger alpaca. It took roughly twenty minutes from the time Breeze's water broke until I was able to satisfy my curiosity as to the sex of her baby. "It's a girl!" I sang out into my cell phone when David answered.

The cria—incredibly strong and vigerous—stood and nursed. Only five minutes had passed since it had been pushed out into the world. That's a very brisk pace for an alpaca baby, even on our farm. Breeze's cria is not as cute as the last two little ones born this year on Stormwind Farm. She has, oddly enough, the look of a miniature adult  and lacks the adorable "teddy bear" features of a juvenile alpaca. I am also not very impressed with her fiber, but I've learned to reserve final judgement in that department until after the first shearing.

Her mother loves her and is very attentive to her cria's needs. With prey animals, that is always a good sign. In the world of prey species, mothers of sick and weak newborns want nothing to do with their defective offspring and often leave them to die without a second glance. Novice breeders(the human caretakers) often have a hard time with that concept. It is a survival strategy dictated by environmental pressure.