Happy Hills Alpaca Farm

Cold weather and march snow storm in the Carolinas...go figure. Its been a very cold winter here but the alpacas love it. Native to the high altiplano of the Andes, this is a piece of cake for them. And no wonder..         As I freeze in my house, or relatively, I grab my first hand spun alpaca afghan that I knitted.  Rather lumpy and bumpy but ohhh so warm and cuddley. Its like cuddling into a cloud of warmth! The coziest thing I've ever had.  And so I put on an extra alpaca blanket on bed at night, the afghan on top and have two layers of pure alpaca on me.  The heat is down to 59 and I sleep like a baby.  So this comforts me to know they are warm outside when its 22 degrees.  
    The boys were out in our back pasture where we keep the herdsires. They can't be with the girls or they "bother" them. But they do seem to protect them.  With all the big rain we've had, our little creek became so filled it litterally was a rushing stream and headed up to our hill. Half way in fact to the paddocks. Could be scary but luckily the rain stopped.
   Ivanhoe, our black herdsire impressed me greatly.  Here it is raining buckets of icy water in temps in the 20's and he's out of his shelter, standing guard , staring at the water down below. Amazing!! He was actually watching to make sure it wasn't going to endanger anyone.
  Anyone of his herd that is.  Three of our girl pacas are going to have his babies in May. We are so excited !  This will be new to us as we just purchased Ivanhoe last summer.  He's a national spin off winner so we are looking forward to his cria (babies).  Black is a hot color now in alpacas and to get fine , black fleece is rare indeed. He is really fine so we are looking forward to them.  He is aparently too. Animals are definetely smarter than we think. ..Ivanhoe protecting his herd :) !