Surprise! It's a girl

Yesterday evening we went out to do the chores and found a surprise. A white cria! 

We were not expecting any babies this early.  We wondered who's cria is it?

It was Bellas!  We had forgotten that we had bred her in May of 2010.  It was on our calendar, but we did not record the date in the records that we keep on the alpacas.  We actually were not expecting any crias to be born until August of this year. So this was truly a wonderful surprise. An alpaca's gestation is 11 to 11 1/2 months. She is a healthy 17 lb. cria. A big girl. Mom is doing well. She is bagged up and the cria has been suckling.

This is a picture taken this morning. We placed a cria jacket on her last night as it was below freezing. Crias cannot regulate their body temperature very well. We had that snowstorm the day before and now everything is flooded in the pastures from the melting of all that snow.  It is a mucky mess.  I was glad to see that she wasn't wet from all of the water. So now we have 24 Alpacas again. (Remember, I blogged about losing Renoir this past winter).

Happy Easter everyone!