Meet Our Alpacas

Rhiannon is a regal fourteen-year-old, and she is the matriarch of our huacaya herd. She is an import and is an experienced mother, with some gorgeous cria. Rhiannon is in great shape and you would never guess that she was more than six or seven. Her fleece is still very soft, and I'm sending it off for a micron count.

Rhiannon was bred to Shadow Walker in the fall of 2006. Her cria was born Sunday, September 2^nd 2007 at Noon. The cria is a wonderful little girl, and weighed 18 lb. 4 oz. She is a beautiful medium reddish/brown. She is vigerous, strong, and was up and nursing within 35 minutes. She is the Rhiannon's first colored cria! We did make a good choice in our herdsire, Shadow. Rhiannon is an experienced and devoted mother. We had little to do, but sit back on our lawn chairs and enjoy a warm, beautiful fall day. In the above picture Carmen is just a few hours old.

Carmen was named after Karmann Ghia the famous car designer. From day one she was racing around the paddock like a little red sports car. This spring when we finally put the alpacas up in the large paddock and pasture so raced around kicking up her heels. What a joy she is to watch.

Carmen's fleece is superb! The coverage is obvious from her pictures. She appears to have inherited not only her father's color, but also the great fiber quality from her grandsires Silversmith and Augusto.

Autumn is 5 years old and was one of the first alpacas we purchased. She is a very sweet girl. She was bred to a well known gray, and her first cria had blue eyes. That inspired me to study, and I quickly learned that breeding patterned alpacas to each other can result in blue eyed alpacas. She is a wonderful mother and devoted mother.

Autumn is one of the main reasons we purchased Shadow. In order to breeder her we wanted to a solid dark male, and Shadow had a very nice pedigree. Autumn is now bred to Shadow, and we are excited to see her 2008 fall cria.

Autumn has incredible fiber, and at last count was still under 18 microns! I love to have her white can brown blanket fiber mixed, and the resulting yarn is a beautiful, soft heathery rosy brown. I have a shawl from her fiber, and have been offered a very nice price for it. However, I will not part with it.

Sylvite is a five-year-old huacaya. She is an interesting color, as about 90% of her fleece is white and 10% is brown. When she was sheared we were surprised how many brown spots she had. She is a large female, as you can tell in the picture. Sylvite is full of spunk, and is our master escape artist. She loves people, and is a wonderful girl. Sylvite does have deep blue eyes, but she is not a BEW. As I said she has some brown spots. We are sad to say that Sylvite lost her 2007 cria. A beautiful rose gray female cria with dark eyes. I cried for days over the loss of this beautiful little cria.

Sylvite was bred to Shadow for a 2008 cria. We all pray that she has a health cria. After she lost her cria she paced the fence line, and stood at the gate for days. She truly grieved over this loss.

Jamiaca is 5 years old, and has just arrived early this spring. She is a beautiful deep reddish brown, and is a sweet gentle girl. She fit right in with the rest of the females, and is very happy. While out taking pictures of the girls I was able to get a ton of Jamiaca, as she quite curious. My younger females and cria really love Jamiaca, and she is protective of them. I particularly like this picture with Carmen peeking at me over Jamiaca's back. While mom eats Jamiaca plays auntie. I cannot wait till next summer to see her with her own cria!

Jamaica weaned her 2007 cria before joining us, and has not been bred yet. This summer we will breed her to Shadow for a late summer early fall 2009 cria. It will be interesting to see what color they produce, and their colors are so similar.

Hadassah is now three years old. She was a few weeks premature, and weighed only 14.3 pounds She is very inquisitive and sweet. Hadassah has very soft fleece, and it should spin into wonderful yarn. Its color is bright white and should lend well to dyeing. I have actually never dyed any yarn, but am thinking about giving it a try this summer. Hadassah does have blue eyes. They are not sky blue, but are deeper. For those of you that know about alpaca genetic the previous owner made made the mistake of breeding her patterned mom to a gray. This is why she has blue eyes.

Hadassh was bred to Shadow last fall for a 2008 cria. It will be interesting to see what they produce. She has gray and patterned genes. With her father's gray genetics and Shadow's Mahogany a nice rose gray would be wonderful, but we will be happy with a healthy cria.

Libby was orphaned as a young cria, and she had to be bottle-fed. However, as you can see she has done very well. She will be two years old this summer. A number of the older females adopted her, and made sure she had the alpaca TLC that she needed. She lived in the barn and pasture with the rest of the females and crias, and the bottle was taken out to her. Although she would come running when she saw the bottle, or you called Libby, Libby, she new that she was an alpaca and understood the importance of the herd. She and Hadassh are best friends, and spend most of their time together.

Libby is now two years old, and we are considering breeding her this fall to Shadow. Last fall she weighed 91 pounds, so she should be up to 100 pounds and ready to be bred by mid summer.

She is a fascinating color. She might be a base Bay Black, but has many spots and mottling throughout her coat: gray, red, white.

Dominica and her cria, Mochacchino are new additions to Mountain Ash. They will be joining us here in Maine this next week, 4/12/08.

Dominica is a lovely 4 year old medium silver gray. She is 1/2 Chilean, 1/2 Peruvian. She has had two crias and proven herself to be a wonderful mom. Mochacchino her 2007 cria hit the ground in early July.

Dominica is being bred to Shadow for a fall 2009 cria

Jana is an 16 years old, and had a complicated delivery several years ago. For this reason we are not breeding her. She makes a great companion and auntie to the younger alpacas, and is enjoying her retirement.

Jana is a large, gentle female. She, along with Rhiannon, watch over the herd, and are the herd matriarchs. Although we do not plan on selling her we would let her go as a companion to one of our breeding females.

Shadow Walker is a Herdsire, and he is a beautiful male. He is three years old, and has fathered three cria to date. His cria, two females and one male, are mahogany, reddish/brown, and a mottled rose gray. We look forward to seeing what his 2008 crias! With two females and one male he started off his breeding career on the right foot. Rhiannon, who had only had white cria, had a beautiful reddish brown female! One look at her face, and it is plain that he passes on great coverage!

His conformation is excellent and his bite is correct. Shadow's fiber is beautiful and besides being crimpy and dense, it has a very shiny luster and brightness to it. He has an impressive legacy with Augusto, Emilio and The Silversmith in his genealogy.

Mochacchino will be 1 year old this summer, and will be residing with our males. We agist them at Forticor Farms. With the addition of Mochacchino we have been discussing the possibility of keeping him, a gelding and our Herdsire on our farm. We will be working this summer on fencing to see if this is a possibility.

He is the image of his sire, HHF Mogul's Mocha. Same great color, same fine/dense fiber -- and same vigor. Mogul's Mocha's 2 year micron count was 20, and his neck and blanket weighed in at 9.6 pounds. Mochacchino's fiber has excellent density, fineness, character and organization. We are hoping to get close to 10 pounds of good fiber from him by the time he is two years old.

We have Mochacchino classified as a Jr. Herdsire. Our goal is to use him as a Herdsire when he is old enough. This will give us another male to breed Shadow's daughters too. Mochacchno had a very nice pedigree, and should be a nice addition to our bloodlines. His sire is Mogul's Mocha, 4Peruvian Royal Condor is one grandsire and PPPeruvian Dm Mogul II, a full Sollocota import is his other grandsire. In 2010, when he is three, we will begin using him. With Carmen being the first female we are planning to breed him to.

Males for Sale: We do have Jr. Herdsires, geldings and fiber boys for sale.