Our last cria to be introduced is Windrush Zianna, born on June 4th to our dam Ivanna and our herdsire Zin. Zin has had a good season on our farm having sired Atlas, Rebecca’s cria, Pride, Anacia and Zianna. While Tobiano gave us his cria contribution in the form of Dream, Serenity and Stormy.
Zianna’s arrival coincided with the passing of our little cria Legs (see post June 6th, Witnessing Life’s Circle) and she was a reminder of the brighter side of life. A beautiful light fawn color with almost an apricot tinge to it, liquid brown eyes and the thickest of eyelashes Zianna is quite a character. She loves to check out what you are doing and is quite a vocal cria, a trait that comes from her dam Ivanna.
Ivanna handled Zianna’s birth with ease; she is an experienced dam and a great milk producer. She prefers to have people keep their distance a little while she is birthing, but interestingly she allowed one of her previous crias, Cariad (who is here for breeding) to be with her as she delivered Zianna. I did eventually remove Cariad from the immediate area where Ivanna was as Cariad was being very curious about the half delivered cria and was starting to get in the way. Ivanna delivered Zianna in her favorite place, right in front of the fan in the small shelter and I used some portable panels to prevent the other alpacas from intruding into the area as she finished delivering. Cariad was still able to see her dam and was very curious about her new sister once she was delivered.
Zianna was the cria that Theresa decided to “steal” a few days after she was born during Theresa’s hormonal confusion! Zianna seemed quite happy to be with Theresa and would try and nurse off Theresa when Theresa encouraged her too, but Theresa did not have milk and so eventually Zianna would return to Ivanna for nursing, much to Theresa’s dismay. We eventually had to separate Theresa and Zianna, as we really did not want Zianna bonding to the wrong dam.
Zianna is already over 30 lbs, testimony to Ivanna’s good milk production record, and is one of the first to greet you when you go out in the pasture.
Of course Zianna was not the last to be born, Pride was born on June 9 and Desert Sandstorm (or Stormy as we call him) was born on June 13, but in all of the chaos at the time of Zianna’s birth I did not get a chance to introduce her.
We now have one cria left to be delivered this summer, our maiden dam Cinnamon is due in July and we are looking forward to seeing what she produces. We see her cria kicking frequently and day by day Cinnamon gets a little larger but is not huge. So are we going to get a little female cria or a little male cria, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!
A Taste of Life at Windrush Alpacas 