June Delight and Delightful Rain

July 7 was an exciting day on the farm.  Visitors to the farm were the first to see that June Delight was ready to give birth.  We had a number of visitors who witnessed the whole birth process.

Peaceful Heart’s Delightful Rain was born around 2:30 pm, and entertained the farm visitors, who enjoyed watching her first efforts to stand and nurse.  She weighed 19.6 pounds and is a beautiful true black girl with dense bundled fleece like her sire Polar Ice.

Sunset Hill’s Polar Ice

As excited as everyone was to see Rain, no one was as happy as Windy Darling.  Windy has been waiting for a playmate since her birth on June 22.  You can see both of our new alpaca crias when you visit the farm.  They and their mothers are in the pasture in front of the store.

Windy Darling greeting Delightful Rain

Join us July 18, 2015 for Peaceful Heart Alpacas’ Second Sit and Knit (or crochet) with the alpacas.  We will have tents set up in the pasture with the alpacas where you can relax and enjoy the alpacas while you have fun working with your alpaca yarn (weather permitting).  Alpacas are curious.  They may come up to see what you are working on.  Last month the alpaca boys wandered in and out of the tent with us.

We will have special discounts on some yarns, and will have a limited supply of Needles and Notions for sale at 40% off.  While supplies last, you will receive a free pattern with every yarn purchase.

The Sit and Knit will take place during our regular hours on Saturday, July 18, 10am-5pm.  Come and join us at no charge, for as long as you like.

We will have a Triangle Loom set up and be demonstrating weaving throughout the day.  We will also have samples of items made in our other fiber art classes.  You can register for any of our Fiber Art Classes online, by phone, or in the shop.

We hope you can join us for this fun and relaxing day.  There is no need to register for this open farm day, but please send us an email if you are planning to join us so we can set out enough chairs for everyone.

We have been anxiously awaiting the births of our spring crias.  This morning, June 22, we greeted our newest farm member, Windy Darling.  Named in recognition of our windy weather this week, and one of our favorite stories.

Windy’s mother Natasha Brown usually meets us at the gate each morning, and was not there when we arrived at about 8:30.  I walked out to look in the shed, and there was Natasha alternating between eating and humming to and touching her new cria who was cushed next to her.

Windy Darling is the full sibling to our handsome Groucho Marx, born last year, and she has the same wonderful black eyebrows and lovely gray fleece.  Their sire is the beautiful and fine fleeced Andean Silver.  Groucho and all the little juvenile boys were quite fascinated with the newest alpaca on the farm as they got their first look at her.

Windy and Natasha are in the front pasture by the store with June Delight who is due later this month, and you are welcome to come by and see them.

Rivanna Andean Silver, sire to Windy Darling and Groucho Marx

Augustine, Wade and Polar Night

Three adorable alpaca boys are the realization of the longtime dream of two sisters in Mt Airy.  Zoe and Cheri have been friends of the farm since soon after we opened in 2006.  They have loved the alpacas since they met them and have welcomed each new batch of crias born on the farm.  Unfortunately, they had no place to have their own, so they contented themselves with visiting the alpacas of Peaceful Heart Alpacas, and taking classes here at the farm to learn more about their great fiber.

The boys relaxing

Finally, though, their dream has come true and through the help of one of their children, they have a place right near their homes to keep their own alpacas.  This week they came and spent time with the alpacas to choose the perfect ones for them and their new farm.  They chose three sweet, young alpaca boys in a variety of colors.  They will enjoy spending time with the boys daily, and will love working with their fiber to create beautiful things.

Augustine, Polar Night and Wade R will be moving to their new home as soon as their shed and pasture are ready for them.  In the meantime, their new owners will be joining us Saturday at our annual Alpaca Fiber Options and Alpaca Health Care Seminars to learn more about keeping them healthy and using their fiber.  If having your own alpacas is also your dream, we invite you to join us Saturday for the classes and Sunday for our first ever Alpaca Pen Sale.

FWD Sharif

Congratulations to Mary Lane of Shamrock Alpaca Farm!  She recently added two females and a lovely black herdsire to her farm.  Peaceful Heart’s May, Zia del Sol Ads and FWD Sharif have moved from our farm to join their new farm mates in South Carolina.  They are all settling in well, and will provide a great foundation for Shamrock Alpaca Farm’s next stage of growth.

Peaceful Heart’s May

We would love to help you too if you are looking to add alpacas to your existing herd or get your first alpacas.  You can see our alpacas for sale here on our website, as well as learn about upcoming educational seminars and our first Alpaca Pen Sale.

Zia del Sol Ads

Alpaca makes wonderful Mother’s Day gifts.  We have listed a few long time favorites here, as well as some brand new alpaca jewelry.

Alpaca Scarves We have some beautiful and incredibly soft alpaca scarves available in both solid colors and patterns.  One of our lovely new patterns are the reversible striped scarves.  We also have some lovely scarves hand knit on our farm.

Alpaca Socks Alpaca socks are always a favorite gift.  Our two most popular socks are our therapeutic alpaca socks and alpaca boot socks, but we also have a wonderful lightweight short socks for wearing with tennis shoes, and a comfortable yoga sock with alpaca shaped non-skid strips on the bottom.  Our thinner dress sock is an incredibly comfortable alpaca sock perfect for year round wear with slacks.

Alpaca Blankets  Our alpaca blankets come in a variety of colors and designs to match any decor, and are perfect for snuggling.

Alpaca Jewelry  New in the store, we have a selection of handcrafted earrings and pins shaped like alpacas.  Available in brass and nickel, plain or with colorful bodies.

Our alpaca yarns from the 2014 shearing of our alpacas have just arrived!!  We have a great selection of yarns in white, gray, fawn, and black.  This year we also have a great selection of ‘candy striped’ alpaca yarns in all natural colors.  We have black and white, brown and white, gray and white, fawn and white, dark and light brown, as well as multicolor yarns made up of 3 and 4 different colors.

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Our alpaca yarns are all natural, 100% alpaca yarns.  We don’t use any dyes in our alpacas’ yarns, and we include on the label the names and pictures of the alpacas who grew the fiber that goes into each yarn.  You can see all these beautiful yarns from our alpacas online and in the store.  The process from alpaca to yarn is a big part of what we do at the farm, and  we love to share it with people.  You can learn more about the shearing and sorting processes, as well as take a virtual tour of the fiber mill where we process our yarns and rovings here on our webpage in some of our earlier posts.

Some of our crias were born a little later than I like to see our fall births, namely Tithonus at the end of October and our long pregnancy record setter Christmas Snow born in December.  We’ve been concerned about them getting extra food to keep their growth up during the cold weather and have been adding alfalfa to their regular hay to give them a little extra protein.  Of course, the mama alpacas, being typical alpacas, would eat the alfalfa as fast as they could leaving little for the crias.  It got me thinking about building another alpaca cria creep feeder to give our new little ones their own space where they could eat with less competition.  (Our previous creep feeder is on the opposite side of the barn and in use by the spring crias right now.)

Snobelle wondering how to get some of that grain. Hercules is more interested in the alfalfa.

We had an overhang area that we just closed in the end to block the wind, and looking at it gave me an idea of how to separate the space so the crias could get in to eat hay.  The crias are all one to three months, so they are not close to weaning yet, and are all very dependent on their moms.  They are not looking for an area of independence as much as with our previous area, just a space to eat at their speed.  So, I decided on a gate similar to our previous feeder with a movable panel across the front of the barn to allow us access to bring in the hay.  We trained them the same way as previously by placing them in the feed area to familiarize them with it.  The crias loved it!

Marquessa is trying to come up with a new strategy for getting into the creep feeder area.

Unfortunately so did one of the moms.  Marquessa is not only lovely, she is smart.  She quickly realized that the 26 inch by 12 inch openings we made were quite big enough for her to squeeze through.  So I added another board to lower the height to 22 inches tall.  No problem.  Marquessa is fine with crouching and walking on her knees to get some extra alfalfa.  So I added a 2 inch board along the edge.  You guessed it.  No problem for Marquessa.  Hold your breath and work through it.  Finally, I added another 2×4, reducing the opening to 8-9 inches.  The opening was now so small we worried the crias couldn’t fit, but they are actually quite tiny still and fit through with no trouble.  Marquessa is put out, but she’s got plenty to eat in the mamas’ hay feeder.

I noticed this week that several of the fall crias were showing a lot of interest in their mom’s grain as well, so added a feeding bar and a couple buckets to the alpaca cria creep feeder area.  That was a hit with the crias, even little Chrissy, so I will likely add a few more buckets so they don’t have to jostle each other to eat.  We expect this to help keep the crias weight gain going strong, while reducing some of the energy demands on their moms as well.

Soap Felted with Alpaca Fiber

We have our alpaca dryer balls and felted soaps back in stock in the store and online.  We sold out before Christmas and are happy to say that we have finally had a chance to make up some new dryer balls and soap.  You can see them here, along with other items made on the farm.  You can also read about how we make our felted alpaca dryer balls here.

Felted Alpaca Dryer Balls

Christmas Snow with her mother right after she was born

We are excited to announce our last birth of the year.  Peaceful Heart’s Christmas Snow was born on December 7, 2014, two months after we were expecting her.  She arrived on a cold, but sunny day and has been wearing extra cria coats since her birth because it hasn’t warmed up since then.

Due to our weather, we try to plan all our births for May and June in the spring and September and October in the fall.  Alpacas are pregnant 10.5 to 11.5 months on average.  Generally, we rebreed the alpacas about 3 weeks after they give birth, and they have their crias about the same time each year.  Individual girls tend to develop a pattern to their pregnancy length so that over time we can better predict when they will deliver.  (For example, Ruthie’s 5 pregnancies have all been between 337 & 344 days, with 3 being exactly 344 days long.)  Every once in a while, though, the alpacas don’t follow our schedule.

Chrissy & Snow - Dec 9

Christmas Snow’s mother, Electric Snow, has had three crias previously.  With those three crias (all from Lord Tennyson), Snow was pregnant 337 days, 334 days, and 330 days.  We assumed she would follow this pattern and expected her 2014 cria around the middle of October about the same time that MJ and Polar Night were born.  We were surprised when October passed with no cria from Electric Snow.  November came, and then went, with no cria, and we started to wonder.  We even had our vet out to do an ultrasound to confirm that Snow was actually pregnant.  She was.  And still we waited.  We started joking that she was trying to break our farm pregnancy record of 393 days held by Bonnie when she was pregnant with her first cria Dubbie.  Apparently we were right as our adorable little Christmas present arrived on Snow’s 396th day of her pregnancy.

Christmas Snow, “Chrissy”, weighed 14.6 pounds and was soon on her feet running around despite the cold.  We quickly weighed her and put a coat on her.  One didn’t seem enough, so we added a second coat.

Chrissy has a lovely, white coat of her own that reminds us a lot of her three full siblings, Timbuctoo, White Owl, and The Princess.  We are so happy to to have her join our fall boys in time for Christmas.   We invite you to come by the farm, visit the crias in the barn, and do some Christmas shopping.  The farm is open daily through the end of the year.

Chrissy & Snow with Polar Night & Wade soon after her birth