People are always asking me how we choose the names for our new baby alpacas (called cria). Here are the top ten ways we do it.

1. Look at the cria and see if he or she is just “looks” like a certain name or if the situation calls for something special. For example, when “George” and “Martha” presented themselves unexpectedly on President’s Day, that seemed a no-brainer.

2. Let your children choose the name. This can leave you with a herd where most of the alpacas are named “Fluffy”, “Brownie” or “Pickachu”, but you can call their offspring “Fluffachu”, “Pickabrown”, and no one will care. Or you can go the fancier route and go with “Fluffy II” or my favorite “Fluffy 2.o”.

3. No? Give the kids some options and let the public vote. (Check out our “name that alpaca” post for example.)

4. Where do you get these names? Scour baby name books.

5. Keep a list of names that your spouse said “no” to when you were having children. Mine is a mile long.

6. Keep a list with you, perhaps on your phone or computer, and every time you like a name from a book or a movie that you think would work for an alpaca, make a note.

7. Name the alpaca the same initial as his/her dam. For example Adele’s cria would be Abby, or Abel. Callista’s cria would be Calliope, or Checkerboard.

8. Visit the internet for pet naming sites like Cat Names Meow where you can find the purrrfect cat name.

9. Combine the names of your cria’s ancestors. For example, I’m considering “Magnum’s Brown Mesquite” for the little guy in the picture above. His sire is our herdsire, SCA Peruvian Magnum, and his grandsire is Peruvian Black Mesquite.

10. Follow your heart. But use your head too. Will people want to buy an alpaca named “Chaos” or “Paris Hilton”? The fun part is – it’s up to you to name your cria. Have fun with it!

Got any good alpaca naming stories? Any unique names or naming techniques you’d like to share? Let us hear about them!

Jim and our new cria

After a long deployment in Iraq, my sweetie, Jim Cocking, is finally home! Actually, he has been home a while. We’ve taken the last month to have a honeymoon. Kinda. As much as you can on a farm with a passel of kids and a herd of alpacas. So not much of one now that I think of it.

But it is wonderful to have Jim back home and not in harm’s way. And we love being able to communicate  face to face instead of by email. We have realized how many of our email convos have been misinterpreted because you can’t read the nonverbal and metacommunication. (Yeah, that’s a big fancy word left over from when I was a psychologist. I like to throw stuff like that around every once in a while so my parents don’t feel like my degree was wasted.)

In the above picture with my dear husband is another new addition we need to welcome – Princess Quita’s little female cria that she had with SCA Peruvian Magnum. This little girl is a beauty! She has a tremendous fleece that is already showing excellent bundling, crimp, and density. She and Princess Quita are for sale in our End of the Year Sale in a package that includes a breeding for each of them for $7,000 for those alpaca fans out there. Email me for more info.

Above is one of the latest additions to our herd. Our farm, Fairhope Alpacas has recently acquired the girls from the Windy Ridge herd. We are so excited to add 20 amazing females to our herd. Later this Spring we will be sending our herdsire SCA Peruvian Magnum to cover most of them. The thought of it just gives me the vapors. sooooo exciting!

Jim and I believe in the future of the alpaca industry, and we are thrilled to have this opportunity to grow our herd. I have worked with Windy Ridge for several years and I know their bloodlines well. They are all about quality, just as we are. When they needed to get out of the business due to health problems, I was happy to be able to acquire their stable of lovely ladies, and one phenomenal boy. (more about him very soon!)

One of the challenges over the years that Jim and I both faced as alpaca breeders of “small farms” was that it was difficult to grow our herds if we were also selling well. Breeding all of these girls this Spring will make for a wonderful growth spurt for our herd in the Spring of 2012.

I can hardly wait! Thanks Windy Ridge and the Tharp family for the opportunity. We luv you and wish you all the best.

Her mom didn’t know what to make of her at first, but now they are inseparable.

I bought her mom, Niida, because I thought she was the prettiest thing ever. And that she and Magnum would make a perfect match. So far it’s a good combo.

Alpacas are very social, and the girls wanted to meet the new addition to the herd. NieNie is the only cria we have on the farm right now so she is the star!

Nie Nie’s floppy ears are a sign of her prematurity. She was about two weeks early. That will either go away on its own by straightening up, or we should be able to fix it be taping them later if the problem persists. (In Nie Nie’s case it is already correcting itself.)

The bond between dam and cria is one of my favorite parts of raising alpacas. It is so tender, so gentle and loving that it sometimes takes my breath away.

Way too young to be getting significant nutrition from grass, tiny NieNie imitates her dam’s grazing behavior at just a few days old because “I want to be just like Mom!” Precious.

If you like this post you might also like:

Tiny Alpaca Phoenix Rises

Meet New Alpaca Cria Sista

Meet George & Martha the Alpacas

Andy with Phoenix, photo by Cheryl Bowen

It started out a glorious morning. My beloved herdsire Magnum was coming home from a long breeding engagement in Colorado. Another of our herdsires, Firecracker, was on trailer as well. IN addition there were three other alpacas who belonged to me but that I had never seen in person – Guardian Angel (our Archangel daughter) and her male cria by side, and Foxy Lady who we had gotten in exchange for several of Magnum’s breedings.

I was thrilled with the prospect of hugging Magnum’s neck again and greeting the new arrivals. The transporter was to be here at 8:30 AM. This was the kids’ first morning out of school for the break so we all lingered in bed a little longer than usual.

When I heard the buzzer indicating that the transport trailer had entered our front gate, I flew out the door. Running towards the trailer, I saw Magnum’s head in the back window. I almost wept with joy! I hurriedly greeted Capt. Dick Hegeman of Alpacas In The Forest, who was driving the rig. We exchanged pleasantries and got Magnum off the trailer. Poor alpaca had been traveling for 7 days!

As I walked Magnum into the barn something caught my eye in the first stall on the right. A lifeless brown lump and a placenta.

My heart sunk. Tapioka had had a stillborn. I felt an empty pang in the pit of my stomach. Disappointment flooded through me, “Oh no!” Dick and I both said at the same time. I quickly put Magnum in his pen and rushed to get back to the dismal scene. “It’s stomach looks like it moved a little,” Dick said.

“Really?” I asked disbelieving. I scurried into the pen and picked up the lifeless cria who hung like a limp dishrag in my arms. “She’s really cold,” Dick said. “Do you have a hot tub you can warm her in?” “No, but I have a bathtub,” I said, without thinking.

“Go ahead. I’m empty so I can wait while you see about the cria,” Dick said. “Let me know what I can do to help!”

“Okay!” I hollered over my shoulder as I ran to the house with my little dishrag.”

As I ran, I looked down at the cria. “It’s dead,” I thought. “It’s already dead.” Caught up in the drama I thought I’d try anyway. There was no life in the cria’s eyes. No spark to show me she was with us. I was going on a fool’s errand, but for some reason I was compelled to go.

I rushed past everyone in the house, up the stairs, and plopped her (in a trash bag) into the bathtub and began running the warm water. Did I see an attempt at breathing? I gave mouth to mouth. Doing this on a new cria is an experience that brings mixed feelings. Their little mouths are tiny. They are dirty with remnants of the “saran wrap” having just been removed. So it’s a tad bit ewww. But the sense of heroism one feels from giving breath, possibly life, to another makes it worthwhile.

As the water filled the tub, the cria’s eyes still looked lost, faraway, unlooking. But occasionally I would see an attempt to breathe. After a bit I felt the need to get back to Dick and all the animals still on the trailer. Sorry that I couldn’t be two places at once, I recruited my husband, the Artist to hold the little cria’s head above water and keep warming her up.”I hope this animal doesn’t die while I’m sitting here holding it,” he said.

“She was dead when I brought her in,” I called back. Hoping that might make him feel better if the little thing did expire.

Back outside I went. We unloaded a couple of alpacas before my son called to me that, “Dad needs you!” Oh dear. Back to the house.

We were out of hot water, but the cria was drawing shallow, desperate breaths. The Artist went to heat up some water on the stove. I decided to pull the baby out of the water and blow dry him. My children kept coming in and admiring the cria. They were curious, and each got a turn helping out by bringing me towels, hairdryers, and heating pads.

The first picture I had time to take

The cria came to life a bit more as we blow dried him. As I held up his head to dry it, he seemed to want to hold it up. He mostly laid there while we dried him. During this process we discovered two key pieces of information about the cria. It was a boy. And though he looked brown, underneath his fiber was rose gray. His face was so pretty I had guessed that he was a girl, but the equipment told a different story.

I left the children blow drying the little guy with strict instructions to the Artist not to let them burn him up. Back to the barn. Dick and I unloaded the last of the alpacas. I called my vet’s office to see if I could run the cria up to their clinic for an oxygen treatment. My vets were not on call. I thought wistfully how much they deserve a vacation, especially around the holidays….but why now? An unsatisfactory conversation with the on call vet had me frustrated. (They have little, if any, knowledge of alpacas.) I noticed my visitors, and quickly hung up the phone.

Sparkle’s human parents, Cheryl and Andy Bowen, of Humming Star Alpacas, had come over for a visit. I was happy to see them, but feeling frazzled…

Steve drying the cria

I introduced Cheryl and Andy to Dick and scooted back and forth to check on my patient, and check with my alpaca peeps. I decided to bring the cria back to the barn to be closer to his mom. I brought Cheryl with me to help carry all our heating equipment. As we topped the landing, the scene melted my heart. There was the Artist, blow drying the little guy, with the most tender, adoring look on his face. He had been massaging the cria, stimulating his muscles. “He likes it when I do this,” he said as he showed me where to blow dry the cria’s neck. “He’s sitting up. And he wants to stand up.”

“Do what? He wants to get up?”

“Yeah, look” With a little help the cria was standing. I was floored. Wow.

Downstairs the kids were watching tv. “Look kids!” I exclaimed, placing the little guy on his four legs.

The cria took a few steps into the sunroom. One of the twins began immediately hugging and helping him. They couldn’t believe it. The cria we had seen an hour ago was such a goner, how in the world had he made such a miraculous recovery? “Phoenix.” the Artist suggested. We all agreed it was the perfect name.

Are You My Mother?

We took Phoenix outside to see his mom. “I can’t believe that’s the same animal!” Dick exclaimed upon seeing him. Ever since then Phoenix has acted like a “normal” cria. He walks around, nurses, and seems fine. strong. He is only 9 lbs. and with a start like that he will be an “at risk” cria. But he has fight like I’ve never before seen.

Phoenix has risen! Photo by Cheryl Bowen

Move over Magnum. A tiny little Phoenix has stolen my heart.

Yesterday a cria was born on our farm. (A cria is what you call a baby alpaca). It comes from the Spanish word for “creation”. This little bundle of joy belongs to our friends, the Bowens, whose farm is Humming Star Alpacas. A few of their alpacas are being boarded with us while their barn is being built. We are grateful to them for sharing their alpaca dam, Doe, with us. Doe has brought us lots of fun moments. She is full of personality, and has one of the loveliest alpaca faces that I know. She was even on the cover of our regional newspaper in 2008 with her friend Walker in an award-winning story about alpacas.

Welcome little girl! Can’t wait to find out what the Bowens will name her. Sired by none other than our signature herdsire, SCA Peruvian Magnum, she looks like a great combination of her two parents.

First steps

I love her pretty little face! It will be fun to watch her grow.

“A new baby is like the beginning of all things – Wonder, Hope, a dream of possibilities”.

~Edna J. LeShan

Words like “dam” and “cria” got you stumped? Check out the Alpaca Glossary of Terms.

“I saw the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen yesterday!” my husband Steve said.

We had both seen the same thing. Our macho herdsire, Magnum, kissing his daughter, Molly.

Magnum is the Mac Daddy

It is not unusual for a dam (momma alpaca) and cria to nibble and “kiss” at each others mouths. They nuzzle, touch noses, and love on each other. The males are kept in separate pens. They don’t usually interact with cria.

Magnum is housed in a run in the main barn between two pens of females. He can flirt with the girls in the next pen. He generally gets to breed with most of them when they are open so he holds court in the middle of the barn, and when everybody is bred he is the happy king of his castle. (He can tell when they are open and gets frisky to try to get to the girls to breed them.)

Magnum has a few offspring in the pens adjacent to his. We have seen him “talking” to his little sons over the fence, and we imagine him telling them about life, teaching them the ropes. But we have not been sure if he knew they are his offspring, or if he thought they were just cria, or if he thought he was such a stud that every cria was his!

Then we saw him with Molly. Molly is a Magnum daughter who is close to breeding age and size. She is big enough that Magnum would normally have figured out that she wasn’t pregnant, and would be orgling (alpaca mating noise designed to make the females weak in the knees) and jumping up on the panels that separated them. But he wasn’t doing this at all. He was kissing Molly. On the mouth. Sweet as a mother and new baby!

I first noticed it one morning as the alpacas were being brought into the barn. As soon as Molly came into her stall that adjoins Magnum, she went up to him and gave him a kiss. It was cute. But they stayed that way, just kissing on each other, nibbling, and touching noses. Before you think this is gross, let me tell you – this was NOT a sexual thing. I know our boy Magnum. He was NOT courting this girl. When he does that – it’s pretty obvious. He was gently loving her.

Freaking out at the extreme cuteness, I ran to get Jeremy, our farm manager, to borrow his phone to take pictures. “Oh yeah,” he said, “They were doing that yesterday.” Well they had stopped by the time I found a camera. I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to capture the moment.

When Steve said that he had seen the same thing as well, I was determined to capture it. These photos were taken on my phone over a 10 minute time frame where Magnum was completely, totally in love with his little girl.

These moments were so intimate, and their affection so strong, that it was a privilege to be able to witness (and record) them. Magnum is one of the most intelligent animals I have ever had the joy of knowing. I don’t doubt anymore that he knows his offspring. If I can recognize the resemblance, I am certain he can as well. Perhaps there is some sort of biological thing happening as well that allows him to know his cria. Whatever it is, we are so blessed to have this incredibly complex and wonderful male be a part of our lives.

What have you seen animals do that surprised you? What displays of animal emotion have touched your life?

"Nade" Comes Home to Fairhope Alpacas!

Welcome to this adorable alpaca! Promenade joined us just after the World Alpaca Conference. She is from Alpacas of Alagaesia in Indiana. Leann of Alpacas of Alagaesia blogs about her alpacas and their fiber at The Fiber of Alagaesia. Leann is quite the Fiber Artist.

Here’s Promenade before her haircut this Spring. She’s called “Nade”. Rhymes with “Katy” which helps me remember how to say it. This girl has a sweet, easy temperament. We love having her on the farm.

We traded two of our handsome alpaca males, Fairhope’s Royal Cantigny (below) and Fairhope’s Pink Cyclone for Promenade.

Fairhope's Royal Cantigny - Blue at AOBA!

Nade is a perfect match for our signature sire, SCA Peruvian Magnum. I can’t wait until we can breed them in the Fall. Magnum can’t wait either. Notice his intent, ahem, interest, in Nade (below).

Yep, Magnum Loves the Ladies!

I was on my way to my first crochet class. I looked out in the field and noticed a lovely little light fawn cria sitting up. Hmm. “That’s not Clark…Wait that’s Hope with that baby. That’s Hope’s baby! It’s here!”

Had to miss the crochet class. Ran over to her. Yes, it’s a her! We have had seven males in a row from our herdsire, SCA Peruvian Magnum. This little darling broke the streak. Don’t get me wrong, the Magnum sons are wonderful. Each one surprises me with how incredible he is. But, females are the name of the alpaca game and this sure is a pretty little one. She is the first cria from our dam, WRR Hope for A Cure. Hope was named in memory of a woman who died of cancer. We are donating a portion of the proceeds from the sales of all alpacas from Hope’s bloodline to cancer research. How great to have a female who can carry on that tradition.

Occasionally we will have cria that are born with curled up ears such as these. It’s kinda funny, kinda cute. Once we had one whose ears touched in the middle and made a heart. We named him “Curly”. I loved his ears so much, they made me smile. After a week or so I realized that when he grew up and was 170 lbs. – it would NOT look cute anymore. So we taped them and fixed them.

If you have a cria with ears that are turned inside out like these, turn them back the right way (as I have done in the top picture) several times a day. Often this alone will correct the ears. If that doesn’t work, manipulate the ears into the proper position and tape them up for a week or so using vet wrap or bandaging tape. Looks like I may have to tape this little one’s. Check back in a couple of weeks for the “AFTER” picture.

Meet Lewis...

...and Clark

Yesterday was a busy day on the farm. One cria’s arrival is enough to make us all stop, greet the new herd member, and then forget everything else we were supposed to do that day. Yesterday after picking up a sick child at school and Mexican food for lunch, I pulled into the driveway. As I got ready to park, I noticed something small and wiggly next to Harrah out in the field.

Welcome to the Herd

I called our farm manager Jeremy, who was on the other side of the barn working, and told him about the baby. He quickly came over to help. We began to do our usual neonatal care (drying, weighing, dipping naval, etc.) I removed the Saran Wrap (membranes from the amniotic sac) and asked Jeremy to tend to the new little cutie while I ate my lunch and tucked my feverish bunchkin into bed.

When I went back to the barn 40 minutes later, the Artist decided to come with me. As we watched Harrah’s little boy with admiration, Jeremy came into the pen from the middle of the barn carrying… a baby. A new baby. Following closely behind was Rose Point.  She wasn’t due for another few weeks but it’s not unusual for her cria to come before their due dates.

Welcome to you too!

The dams had a chance to get to know their new babies.

Are you my mother?

Rose Point and Lewis

Harrah's almost smiling with Clark at her side

What a day – a Double Header! Two handsome baby boys. Brothers, as they are both sired by Magnum. When we were trying to think of names my 8 yr.old offered, “Lewis & Clark” and it just stuck. I have a list of names and am always looking to add to it. So leave a comment and tell me – If you were going to name a pair of male alpacas, what are some names you would consider?

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