We just got great news about Marie and Anduril.  Both are spitting off, which is the first sign that they are pregnant.  They have had a few spit offs now.

What is a spit off?
A spit off is when the female (after mating) is re-introduced to a stud male.  A female that has ovulated or that is pregnant will reject the male (generally involves spitting).  A female that is not pregnant will normally accept mating fairly quickly.

Normally if the female is stil spitting-off 28 days after mating, she is pregnant.

What's the due date?
The pregnancies are being confirmed with a scan tomorrow :)

Alpacas are pregnant for 11 months, so we have a while to wait.  Anduril’s Last Mating Date is 27 July 2015 so she is due 13 July 2016 and Marie’s Last Mating Date is 21 July 2015 so she is due 7 July 2016

Who is the father?
The father is a lovely prize winning stud male name Explorer (Beck Brow).  You can find more information about him on the Beck Brow website.  Just a side note, Explorer's father sold for £75,000 so he comes from good blood lines!!  Hopefully the apples won't fall far from the trees and we will breed some lovely alpacas that will make great additions to our growing herd!

We had a chance to visit Beck Brow and meet Barbara and Paul when we were up in the Lake District in July.  It's amazing how welcoming and friendly the people in the alpaca industry are.  They invited us into their home and showed us around the farm.  We even had the opportunity to watch Explorer mate

I just got a couple of pictures of Marie and Anduril from when they were younger...and Anduril is in full fleece!!

It's been an amazing day.  The first of many in our Alpaca Journey.  Today we made the decision on our first alpacas.