Today was Claudia's turn for mating. We had arranged for her to go to a very special male - Bozedown 'The Chief'. Bozedown are a large breeder near Reading who have won a lot of prizes in the big shows. There aren'yt that many grey stud males around and he defintely seemed the best.
The first hurdle was loading Claudia, but she wasn't any more difficult than Ariadne, although she can be quite flighty. The journey wasn't nearly as bad as we thought and the place wasn't too difficult to find - especially as there were fields and fields of alpacas. We phoned when we were close and Mary Jo, the owner met us shortly after we arrived, with her 2 year old daughter. Again Claudia behaved perfectly, dancing down the ramp quite enthusiastically - did she know what was planned? There were mating pens just by where we parked the trailer so it was easy enough to lead her in to one of them. She was allowed a quick drink and mouthful of hay and then The Chief was fetched from the adjacent field. He defintely knew what was being taken to the pens meant. He was prancing along looking very happy!
Unlike Ariadne, Claidia was not slow in catching on and the mating seemed to go very well. Claudia seemed quite taken with Chief and kept turning to look at him. Again it took about 20 minutes and then Chief stood up and Claudia followed his example. She seemed in no hurry to leave his side but it was back to the 'mens field' for Chief. Claudia would go to a field kept for visitors. She was the only grey so would be easy to identify. They'd do regular spit offs and would scan at 6 weeks from the last mating date. If they were sure she was pregant then they'd keep her until 8 weeks were up as a bit like humans, the first and last 8 weeks of pregnancy are the most risky.
Neil managed to turn the trailer succesfully and we went on to Bristol to meet various members of my family. We arrived home just after 8 to find an extra alpaca in the field. Clever Cass had produced her first Cria without any helpf rom us. It was a little bay black boy, up and feeding very happily. We checked him overa nd sprayed his chord with iodine and weighed him - 17 pounds - and then left Mum and son to it.