April 8, 2013

Maggie had a baby!  Meet Hunter -


In Canada most alpaca babies are born in the summer months which means alpacas are bred in May, June or July.  But sometimes there are surprises..........
 
In April of 2012 a windstorm blew over a gate between some of the adult females and six of the adult males.  No one noticed it until a few hours later when Maggie sauntered out of the boys' pen with a smile on her face.
 
Alpacas are induced ovulators which mean that if a female is not pregnant when she is around the males, they will mate and she will more than likely get pregnant.  Their pregnancy lasts approximately 11.5 months so we started keeping an eye on Maggie in March.  She got bigger and bigger and a little cranky so we knew it would be soon.  Because we knew it would be too cold for the baby to be born outside, John and Sharon built a lovely birthing room inside the barn and kept Maggie in there along with Serena for company.
 
At 7:00 am on March 21st Sharon went out to the barn and heard a new humming sound from Maggie.  Sure enough a baby was standing beside her - a lovely 17 pound male.
 
He has the white face and socks of his mom with a black neck and brown back.  Out of the six potential fathers, one is black and five are white so we can't be sure who Hunter's dad is and only a DNA test will confirm that information.

Here are some more photos of Hunter and Maggie along with Serena.  He and Maggie enjoy the sunshine but the winds have been cool, so Hunter wears this stylish coat:




1 comment:

  1. OH MY GOODNESS HE IS SO CUTE!!! Gorgeous baby, any idea who the sire is? :)

    ReplyDelete