In late September we visited the Big Pine Acres huacaya and sheep farm just outside of Lafayette, IN. We were immediately greeted by this fluffy ball of love: a cria that needed bottle feeding. He was generous with the kisses!
We also met a cria that was just a day old, with mom. They were both humming away a mile a minute.
Jolly the llama needed some petting as well. It seemed like every single animal on this farm was just delighted to interact with us.
Jolly told me a few secrets. I'm glad there was no spitting in my ear.
At feeding time, I had the honor of giving the bottle. It was much trickier than anticipated due to the required angle of the cria's neck and combined with a bottle let the milk out very quickly.
After looking over the stock and admiring the many coveted gray alpacas, The Farmer decided to think about which one we would get. He also requested a breeding for the mom of the bottle-fed cria above.
And yesterday, she got dropped off! This is Sierra Mist, who was immediately nicknamed Peggy-O, because, you know, The Grateful Dead song name is a must-have at Shady Grove.
She didn't really want to get out, and needed a little dragging to get going.
But soon there was sniffing, spitting, exploring, and making new friends. She was super excited to get some grain!
We are delighted to finally have a gray alpaca and have a few fingers crossed for a gray cria next year.
As a special treat, the former owners gifted me a skein of gray yarn from another animal on their farm. Such a sweet gesture. The yarn is so so soft!
And as if these weren't enough amazing alpaca activities for one week, my colleague and office-mate made me this fantastic shirt on her new T-shirt maker. Big thank you shout out to Dani! I am so lucky to have so many wonderful people and animals in my life!
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