It’s a Boy!

Peaceful Heart's Ninja

We are happy to announce the birth of a beautiful male alpaca cria.  Peaceful Heart’s Ninja was born on Saturday to our sweet Sugar Cookie and the impressive Kubla Khan.  He is a gorgeous true black.  We are expecting Ninja to grow into an impressive herdsire.

People often ask us about the color of our alpaca crias.  A common question is if they will stay the color they are at birth; they do.  You may see a little color variation from when they are first born, because the fleece they are born with (their ‘cria tips’) is often a slightly different color due to a reaction with the amniotic fluid, but the color at the roots is the color they will be.  We shear our spring crias at one to two weeks of age to remove these cria tips.  We like to wait that long, if the weather permits, because it allows all the amniotic fluid affected fleece to grow out long enough to be sheared off and give us a nice consistent start to their first year fleece.  If the crias are born later than we plan or the weather turns particularly hot, we will shear crias as early as 1-2 days after birth.

Sugar Cookie (laying down to eat), Ninja, Earlyne, and the other moms enjoying hay

Another common question is do we know what color they will be before they are born?  No.  We  usually have a good guess, but we have been surprised many times.  Ninja and his half sister Earlyne both surprised us this year being much darker than we expected from the combination of their mothers and their dark rosegray sire, Kubla Khan.

Ninja’s dam is our lovely pale fawn Sugar Cookie.  Sugar is a daughter of our fabulous Powergrid, and  has given us two beautiful white boys previously from white Lord Tennyson.  We assumed we would probably get a fawn or brown cria from the combination with Kubla Khan, but are thrilled with the color of Ninja, and are particularly pleased with the crimp and density we are seeing in Ninja’s fleece at this early age.

Ninja’s sire, FWD Kubla Khan is a son of the famously dense, 11 time Champion and 5 time Get of Sire winner, The Aga Khan.  He is descended from Shere Khan, possibly the most famous herdsire in Peru, who sired the Vendagor/Capac line.  Kubla is a stunning Champion with a strong background of color on his maternal side.

We invite you to come visit Ninja and the other spring crias.

FWD Kubla Khan

Peaceful Heart's Sugar Cookie


Comments are closed.