Dr Leslie Richardson our local alpaca vet came by with her assistant Dannie to check out the new cria that arrived last week and draw some blood for the BVD test and the ARI DNA testing card.



Young cria can sometimes be a real handful and getting them up off the floor is one way to ensure that they relax. Once their legs lose contact with the ground they do generally give up trying to escape.



This makes it much easier for the vet to hit her target and draw blood at the first attempt.



The cria is fine and has a slightly raised temperature so I will take it again tomorrow and see where we are. Anything over 102.6 and Dr Richardson has asked to be informed.

The Mountain Lion.
My neighbor has just called to say the Mountain Lion was seen near my property last night but took off when it was disturbed by the headlights of a car. Obviously we must maintain our precautions with lights and radio talk shows to give the impression of humans being around 24/7.

Today's major event is the 18th birthday of my only daughter Camilla Rose Stewart.

The farm is in good shape and nothing much to report on that front, the vet will be out tomorrow to check over our new cria.

Meanwhile I have been approached by the publishers of an upcoming llama and alpaca book about providing illustrations. I have no idea if my work will be accepted but I am very flattered to have been asked in the first place. I shall keep you posted if anything comes of this assignment.

The annual alpaca show AlpacaMania is now almost closed for entries which means we will be full and that is a huge achievement in the current climate. This event is now only weeks away so I better get planning the vet check which is my own part in the proceedings.

Long time friend and beneficiary of SOJAA funding, Dr. Christopher Cebra, DVM and colleagues at Oregon State University are about to embark upon a study to:

1) determine the incubation period from infection to symptoms with coronavirus (CoV),
2) the length of time that virus is shed from both the feces and nasal mucosa,
3) the length of time the virus remains in the environment and
4) whether or not the strain of CoV that causes diarrheal disease in alpacas is capable of producing a respiratory infection such as was seen in the ARS outbreak of 2007.

Dr. Cebra’s work is based upon a previous study conducted by Ling Jin, PhD at Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon. Dr. Jin sequenced the genome of a CoV from an alpaca with diarrheal disease and compared it to that of several common bovine CoVs.

Her study has been published in the Journal of Virology, 365, 198-203, 2007. Overall, alpaca CoV was found to be very similar to the type II bovine CoVs that cause diarrhea and respiratory disease in cattle.

Close analysis suggests that the alpaca CoV shares a common ancestor with two of the bovine type II viruses. An interesting finding of this study was that the structure of the alpaca CoV is different from the bovine CoVs at a particular region of the genome that plays an important role in determining species specificity. This finding may explain the increased susceptibility of alpacas to the unique virus isolated from alpaca.
Dr. Crossley, and her colleagues at the Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory, Davis California, will undertake the sequencing of the genome of a CoV isolated from the lung of an alpaca with ARS. From the sequence they will determine whether the alpaca CoV is the same or different from the CoV that it causes diarrhea in alpacas and causes both respiratory disease and diarrhea in cattle.

Both studies will increase knowledge within the alpaca industry of the many factors that surely contributed to the Fall ’07 outbreak in our alpacas and hopefully provide valuable data for preventing further outbreaks.

Here we are back on the farm for the last day of our vacation. This is also the last day we will run irrigation in the hay field this year. After today we will let the field dry out then take our second and final cutting of hay. After which I move the fences around and let the alpacas go wild in there for a while.

We always keep some of the second cutting for our own use and this year the hay does look pretty good if I say so myself. Still best not to count our second cuttings just yet!

The big question to ponder upon today is breeding. Do we leave some females open until the spring of 2009 or do we breed now for Autumn babies next year? There are many considerations - not least of which, is trying to guess what state the economy and in particular the alpaca market will be in this time next year.... Time for some crystal ball gazing.

Today is the first full day of our three day vacation in Yachats on the Oregon coast.

Its always reassuring when you see a new cria urinate. A very good indicator that she is getting fluids and that her kidneys are working just fine. Of course unless you are eagle eyed and watch them all day there is a certain amount of good fortune involved. But better lucky than rich as my old man used to say.



A new crias stools will be like tiny grains of rice so they are easy enough to spot on the ground. Speaking of alpaca stools I did take a sample from Lucy to the vet yesterday for a fecal test. Not because I thought she had worms particularly, but she just happened to deliver a sample as I walked past and I always keep a zip lock bag in my pocket when out in the alpaca paddock. They are extremely handy just for this very reason.

Well here we are at Wednesday half way through the week already and still one hundred and one things to do on the alpaca farm before I go on vacation for a few days.

Our new arrival is fine and is still called "Mia Sorella 08" until we can think of a new name for her. The sire is Paul Revere and I am very pleased with the results.



The vet will be coming out next Thursday to give the once over and draw some blood for the usual BVD test and a few drops for the DNA card required by ARI.

Well better get on there are some boys out there that need there toe nails trimming and time is moving right along.

Sometime in the last 12 hours Mia Sorella gave birth to a female cria....





The nights are quite chilly so a winter coat is a great idea at this time of year. If the temperature really gets up during the day then I will take it off but for now its a good precaution as small animals of any species are always susceptible to extremes of temperature and newborns may not have a fully functioning internal thermometer so better safe than sorry.

Meanwhile Minne continues to rebuff Conmans romantic overtures....

Our next door neighbor (if that's the correct term) has decided to sell I think! Well the place is on the market but at $10 million in the current climate it does look like something of a fishing trip to me. But who knows maybe some aspirational parent still in the grips of Olympic fever will snap it up in order to get his or her offspring into the Olympic team.

The property consists of an Olympic dressage arena that seats 300 people with attached clubhouse and gym. Grounds include a 1501 sq ft original farm house, 10 barns with 39 stalls including a veterinarian barn all fully fenced. Home site approval on the top of the knoll
with spectacular views of Ashland and the valley. Large pond, well with two holding tanks, and 33 acres of TID rights.

Having written yesterday about the amount and quality of Peruvian products coming into the US I was inspired to take a look at the Michell web site.
The Michell Group of companies is quite impressive and there are fully three generations of the Michell family working in the family business. It is well worth taking a trip to their web site and looking at the various brands they have developed.



So go take a look and I will see you back here later.

Meanwhile its time to do some more spit testing on the (hopefully) perganant female....

For some time now I have been receiving marketing e-mails from a company in Peru that is producing alpaca garments for men, women and children. When I first got into this business some years ago now we were as an industry always sceptical about the quality and style of garments coming out of Peru and other South American countries.

However, that has changed and both the quality and style have greatly improved.





One company in particular is now targeting small retailers around the globe and offering comprehensive support in terms of own label branding and even custom marketing services.
They are far ahead of our own North American Fiber Cooperative and it does make me wonder how we will ever catch up.

Following on from a piece I wrote this week about Keep the Fleece I wanted to talk some more about Peruvian alpaca fleece.
Exports of alpaca fiber from Peru have nearly doubled to more than $43 million in the last four years, as models strut catwalks from Beijing to New York wearing alpaca garments of ever shape and size.

New York-based designer Rachel Comey loves the feel of alpaca and its more exotic cousins the vicuna and guanaco, known collectively as camelids.

Vicuna is the costliest, trimmed once every two years from the rarest of the three breeds, which roams the plateaued border region between Bolivia and Peru. A yard of the fabric sells for at least $3,000, while a basic stole starts at $950.

A similar PEruvian stole made of alpaca — which is farm-raised and makes up 99 percent of camelid exports — sells for about $47, while llama fleece is rarely commercially sold.

Peruvian producers are repositioning alpaca as a sexier luxury thread, spun into casual clothes and evening wear to appeal to young professionals with the disposable income for luxury goods. Laird Borelli, a senior features editor at Style.com. says that demand is in part assisted by the popularity of alpaca with environmentally conscious designers who want the softness of fur without the guilt.

“If you have a fabric that can get as close to fur as that, it’s an amazing thing,”

said New York designer Daryl Kerrigan, who has used alpaca to make coats.

Lima, Peru-based designer Jose Miguel Valdivia said

".......designers and textile producers are finding ways to re-create Incan precision on a larger scale and now use the fleece to weave softer fabrics that remind some of the world’s finest furs."

Peru’s government is also boosting efforts to promote the fibers, sending local designers to Europe to lobby the movers and shakers in the world of fashion.

Andean breeders in still-poor parts of rural Peru are seeing an income boost, providing a steady supply of top-grade fleece.

Breeders and textile companies are trying to improve their techniques for separating coarser fibers, shorn from alpacas’ necks and hoof-areas, from longer, more delicate flank hair. They’re looking for a scientific way to boost fleece quality, too.

Some years ago Michell & CIA S.A. — the world’s largest alpaca fleece producer — opened a breeding center in Peru’s southern Puno province to isolate traits responsible for finer fleece. Now its scientists breed alpaca and teach their methods to small farmers.

The idea is simple: The finer the fleece, the lighter, more sought-after and expensive it is.

And as an alpaca breeder here in North America all we have to add to that is the more weight of fine fleece per animal the better.

I have started to notice in the very few alpaca shows I see that there is a trend towards smaller more delicate looking alpacas...or maybe its just my imagination. Personally, I prefer the larger boned alpacas that have a good strong frame.

Why do I prefer the larger framed alapacs? Well its just a gut feel I have that the females can carry cria more easily and then birth more easily. Plus breeding can involve quite a bit of coercion from the male and I feel a larger alpaca is more able to take that.

Still I have no evidence to back any of this up its simply a personal preference.



Let me know what your thoughts are.