2022 Live Cams and Births
Starting at the end of May and going all the way through the beginning of August we will be expecting new alpaca babies (cria) on our farm! We want to bring you all along for the journey, so we're creating a Live Camera channel and set up that will allow you to follow along with this year's births and the babies as they become a part of the herd. To kick it off, we want to introduce all of the moms who are pregnant and the dads on our farm that were a part of the process.
Moms:
Truffles, Due Date August 4th 2022 - This sweet fawn colored girl is 8 years old and will have her 5th baby this Summer. She is the daughter of Pogo and Rockstaur. Her genealogical line tends to be a bit “sassy” which helps us love them that much more. Last summer, Truffles birthed Escobedo, named after the beloved Juan Escobedo – who works closely with Alpacas of Montana ensuring all of our high quality products are made just right – as he was at the farm during Escobedo’s birth. Our little man Escobedo has definitely lived up to Truffles’ sass levels and constantly looks grumpy.Truffles has super wicked soft fiber with a low micron, which we’re hoping she will pass along to offspring. She’s also the only alpaca that Alpacas of Montana has ever taken to a show and “took a walk”, which means left the show without a ribbon. At the end of 2020 Truffles dealt witha super bad ear infection that left part of her face temporarily paralyzed, but she’s come back from that well. Truffles is a great mom and we are so excited to welcome her new baby to our farm.
Ripley, Due Date July 28th 2022: This dark rose gray girl will have her first baby with Orlando Cloud (an outside breeder) mid summer. Ripley is a sweet, low key young lady that has been known to frequent our stores on occasion during the holidays. She’s quite curious and has the cutest face. We can’t wait to meet her first baby.
Arial, Due Date June 29th 2022: Arial was born on the Alpacas of Montana farm to Lollipop. Her first baby,Leroy Brown, had an intense premature birth with a lot of learning opportunities for James and Sarah. At the age of 10, this sweet girl will have her 2nd baby after waiting 4 years since her son was born. Arial is one of our taller ladies and her last kid was on the larger size.Arial’s nickname is Hotlips, because she always looks like she stuck her lips in something and is walking around with puffy lips. We’re hoping Arial’s second baby will be a much easier and more on time birth, so stay tuned to see what happens!
Olive, Due Date July 11th 2022: We have a rule on the farm that if you’re here during a birth, you get to name the alpaca. Olive was born when one of Sarah’s high school friends was in town. Sarah’s friend’s daughter is named Olive and decided it was only fitting to name the new baby alpaca after herself. Now, Olive is a distinguished favorite on the farm, who always greets people. She’s one of those alpacas that if you meet her once you never forget her. She has a distinct happy look and personality. Olive also has this super cute mark on her side that looks a bit like a bat, a bit like a stingray. She goes to a lot of shows and sometimes makes her way to downtown Bozeman in the winter to meet everyone in our community. We are hoping that she passes on her lovely coloring and puffy head – also known as a top knot – to her first cria this summer!
Mercedes Due Dates, May 22nd, May 24th, June 11th:This lovely lady is 15 years old and has been with us through everything. Her demeanor is unlike any other alpaca we’ve ever raised. Because alpacas are flight not fight animals and they don’t have any ways to protect themselves, most alpacas are really shy and skittish, but not Mercedes.Ms. Mercedes is one of those alpacas who is constantly confused if she’s a human or an alpaca. When she was a baby, the confusion even includedcat as she would walk up to people and rub against their legs just like a cat until you picked her up or, after she became an adult, scratched and pet her. Usually alpacas need to build some trust with the people that are handling them, but Mercedes is friendly and sweet toward both people she knows and those that she’s never met before. Alpaca gestation is usually around 11 months (yikes!), so they often only have a few weeks between giving birth and getting pregnant again (double yikes!). After one year and one day, Mercedes’s was born to Anabelle Onyx, a beautiful solid black alpaca. Our intern from Germany was with us during the birth and helped deliver Mercedes. We were all quite surprised when Mercedes showed up at a mere 11 pounds--nearly half the weight of most babies--and with fawn coloring (both of her parents were solid black in coloring).Mercedes was reluctant to choose a partner until this past year to mate with, so even though we’ve loved her deeply for so long, she’s never gotten pregnant – until now! She has a spunky personality and is always looking for someone to say hello too and hang out with. We were thrilled to learn that she is expecting a baby this summer and are so excited to meet whoever she brings into the world.
Pele, Due Date July 14th 2022: Pele is a deeply loved alpaca who has had 5 babies (cria), who are all the sweetest most adorable little alpacas. Just like their mother, her children have light gray super puffy fleece, inquisitive personalities and are adorably adventurous. Pele is low key and rarely bothered by anything. As an experienced mom, she knows exactly what to do and usually has simple, easy births. If you look closely at Pele’s left side on her rib cage, you may see some coloring in her fleece that looks like a hummingbird. Pele’s father, Sterling Silver, was consideredthe ideal gray alpaca in all of America, so her lineage is quite impressive. Pele’s most recent baby, Felix, quickly became a favorite in the Bozeman community as he visited the library, the local farmer’s market and our downtown pop up store at Owenhouse Ace Hardware. He’s easily bribed with food and is confident and curious, making him a super fun, fuzzy baby. We can’t wait to meet Pele’s newest cria!
Maya, Due Date June 29th, 2022: Two years ago there was a devastating fire in our local mountain range: The Bridger Mountains. The fire started quickly and ravished the area. When the fire started, James and Sarah grabbed their trailer and headed into the storm to help rescue animals up the canyon. Maya was five at the time and was one of the rescued alpacas who ended up staying at Alpacas of Montana after the fire. She was friendly from the get-go, but had minimal human hands-on experience and never had been haltered. After many days of one on one work with James, Sarah and our dear Annie, Maya has come a long way and is now a healthy, happy lady expecting her first cria. You can tell her apart from the other black alpacas as she has light gray / white on her shoulders and chest.She’s integrated nicely in the herd and is friends with everyone. We look forward to meeting her first baby at Alpacas of Montana!
Pogo, Due Date July 14th 2022: While Pogo was bred over the past few years, this is the first year we’ve known she’s pregnant in a short period of time. She is Truffles’ mom and this will be her 5th baby.Pogo is a super sweet lady, who is really fun to be around. Each summer we spray our alpacas with a hose, because otherwise they can’t naturally cool down in the intense Montana summer heat. When you squirt her with the hose she’s the first to come over and when she gets sprayed she goes on her back legs and jumps like a pogostick. Somehow she’s managed to pass this on to all of her kids and so they do it too. She just jumps forward and tries to take all the water she can. She’s a great mom who is really attentive, and we’re ready to meet her next cria!
Apache, Due Date July 1st 2022: Apache is a shy girl at best. She also was one of the ladies rescued in the 2020 Bridger Fire. Apache took awhile to come around after being rescued from the fire. Even though she was rescued from another farm in the fall of 2020, she has Alpacas of Montana lineage. Her mom was one of our alpacas who was sold and then had Apache. Her mom is a wild child, who has never took to training or people. Both her mom and Apache are skittish and don’t want much to do with humans. Apache has beautiful brown fleece, but her parents are black and light gray, so we’re excited to meet her baby and see what colors it’ll take.
Margo, Due Date July 28th 2022: Margo’s mom is Truffles and her father is Argus. With those two parents, her lineage is incredible. She has a really fine fiber and is one of our top females with respect to fiber quality. She boasts a shiny, black, soft fleece and is always ready to play and eat her treats. She will be one of the first moms to give birth this spring / summer. We can’t wait to meet Margo’s baby and start to have some young ones running around again!
Sara, Due Date July 28th 2022: Sara is a 17 year old, who has somehow retained the integrity of her fiber throughout her entire life. Most alpacas loose their top notch fleece by age 3, so the fact that Sara’s continued to have super high quality fleece for her entire life is amazing. The first baby Sara had was at another farm and was born at 26 pounds – most cria range from 14 - 18lbs. Unfortunately, the baby ended up dying and Sara was exceptionally heart broken. Shortly after she lost the baby she was sold back to us and two years later had a healthy baby girl named Charlotte. Sara is one of a few white alpacas still on the farm and has extremely soft fiber. We don’t usually breed white alpacas and never breed for white alpacas because blue eyed, white alpacas have an increased risk of being blind and enduring other health complications. Sara, however, has black eyes and black toenails – which add to her sassy diva personality – and we finally have a male that we can breed who isn’t beige or white, so there’s a very high chance of having a healthy baby. Sara’s had a lot of ups and downs. She was also attacked by a coyote on our property, but our guard dogs were able to save her. Despite everything, Sara is our flirty girl who loves the spotlight. She’s a rotund gal. No matter the time of year, pregnant or not, she’s a big girl with an equally big personality and we cannot wait to meet her new baby!
Valentine, Due Date June 17th 2022: Valentine birthed one of the country's best known alpacas and one of our farm favorites to date: Rock Staur. You can always count on him to be fiending for treats and at the center of the treat bucket. Valentine, however, was the first baby James and Sarah ever saw and brought onto the farm. She was born in a trailer on her way to Bozeman. She came to the farm at one week old with her mom and James and Sarah fell in love instantly. Since then, she’s never left and has always been treated as royalty. At 18 years old, she’s so sweet and gentle and will be having her fourth baby, who we cannot wait to meet!
Dads:
Pete:Pete is a farm favorite. You probably know Pete from many of our photoshoots or fromthe video of Pete on the basketball court where he was the star. Pete was bought from another farm and quickly became an integral part of the family. He was originally bought because his fleece is incredibly dense and also has a high crimp volume, which are two of the hardest things to breed into an alpaca. When trying to breed for quality fleece, breeders are looking at the length of the fleece and the density (how many follicles per square inch there are). Longer fleece is desired because it makes it easier for the fiber to be spun into yarn, making Pete perfect! He was also bought for his beige coloring. When a gray alpaca is bred to a beige alpaca the baby is almost always gray, which is the color our farm tries to breed for and is also the hardest color to breed. Pete is now four years old and is one of our breeding males. He had his first baby last year and his second this summer. He is scheduled to have quite a few next year as well. We love Pete because he is docile and super mellow. He’s the kind of guy that gets along with any and every one. He is a go to favorite when people come to visit because of his loving demeanor.
Argus: Old man Argus is one heck of a guy. He was born in the summer of 2007 from the farm De La Patagonia, which was one of the top 3 farms in the nation until the owners retired and moved back to Chile. At a young age Argus started competing in shows around the country. He is a beautiful silver gray alpaca. At Alpacas of Montana we breed for gray and black alpacas, so the decision to purchase Argus was quite easy. He has a gorgeous fleece that is extremely dense and exhibits a very consistent, high-frequency crimp (the wave in the individual alpaca fiber, which is what is most ideal and essential in ranking alpaca fiber). Argus went to a competition called the Alpaca Sweepstakes where he was judged in the light color class, which means that there were alpacas of all sorts of different colors, not just gray. The judge from Peru was blown away with Argus and commented on the extreme density that he has for a gray colored alpaca. He was extremely successful in various alpaca competitions around the country. In 2008, he was the Ohio Buckeye Color Champion and also the Color Champion at the National Alpaca Sweepstakes. Also in 2008, he came in 1st place overall at the MAPACA Jubilee and at the Ohio Buckeye. He was second overall in the 2008 AOBA Nationals as well. Argus is a very decorated alpaca with one big personality. Wherever he goes, he tries to be the top dog--well, alpaca. At our farm, we keep the male and female alpacas in separate pastures, so they do not breed. The males are seemingly always ready to go, so we have to make sure there’s a fence between them and the females. When we first brought Argus back to our farm, we kept him separate (via a small fence) from all of the other males as well, so he could get the lay of the land and a feel for his new living situation. While he was still separated from everyone else, one of our horses wandered over to Argus’ pen to check him out. Unfortunately, he wasn’t too thrilled about the newcomer. Our horse turned his rear right up against the thin, flexible fence and kicked Argus square in the right shoulder, breaking it on impact. The poor guy was supposed to lay low, but his injury just made him want to assert his “head alpaca” status even more. Being a rambunctious male, he tried to pick fights and claim dominance. During one of his wild bouts he tried a move that didn’t pan out and resulted in a torn ACL. After talking to a board certified Orthopedic Surgeon, we decided not to do an ACL surgery on him, but to try and just give him some therapy and time to recuperate. Ultimately, we knew that the only way the surgery would have been worth it was if we could ensure he would have taken it easy, been compliant and relaxed, which were all far out of his demeanor. He wasn’t going to stop trying to be top alpaca just because we wanted him to heal from a surgery, so we decided to forgo the operation and give him some medications to help swelling and healing instead. We figured that eventually he would simmer down and lose some of that coveted Argus spunk (ya know, as he aged), but boy were we wrong. In another rambunctious spree he tore another ACL. The old man still has a ton of spirit in him and remains a vital part of our breeding program every year. We know that his arthritis flares up during the colder months, so we give him anti-inflammatory shots and make sure he’s always got a warm spot in the barn to spend the nights. We’re not sure he ever actually established his desired “top alpaca” position on the farm, but he definitely is a respected older gentleman. The other males - young and old - give him leeway and get out of his path as he walks through, so it’s a balance he has to settle for. As owner James says, “he’s our dude” and we’re happy to have him as a part of our family. Even after he gimps around with his coat and eats his special feed during the winter, the old Argus is back in the Spring during the breeding season, showing off his personality and energy.
Rock Staur: Rock Staur has lived up to his name. He won a blue ribbon at Alpacapalooza and GWAS in 2009 and has consistently placed in subsequent shows. His extraordinary silver gray fleece had a micron count of 18.2 as a yearling. Rock Staur’s grandma is Nakota, the first alpaca ever purchased on the farm, and his mom is Valentine, who is also pregnant again this year! He comes from a long line of superfine fiber and so anytime there’s a female alpaca who has everything but fine fiber he gets bred to them with hopes that he can pass that along to his cria. Often when we do outside breeding for other farms, he’s the male that everyone falls in love with and wants to breed their ladies to.You can always count on him to be fiending for treats and at the center of the treat bucket.He’s now 15 years old, which is old for an intact male, but is still kicking it and happy to be an active part of our farm.
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