At this point in time nothing is official as to the exact date of the move. All I know is that Tom will begin to temporarily telecommute to Atlanta starting the second week of March. Tom still has some projects he needs to finish up in Mexico before we can leave Arizona.

For me the move is bittersweet. I was really becoming established in the alpaca industry in the desert. I will miss the beauty and dry heat of Arizona as well as all the friendships Tom and I have made with both alpaca ranchers and customers.

We look forward to making new friendships on the east coast. Also, since Tom and I are originally from NY and NJ we will be closer to our families. Plenty of changes will be coming, but we look forward to the opportunity of attending more shows and networking with the eastern portion of the Mississippi.

Overall I will be happy to see the dirt rings on my alpacas’ fleeces disappear and to have the moisture brought back into their fibers. I am sure both they and the maremmas will love the grass.

On Saturday Tom did a presentation on alpaca husbandry. He was all set up with his samples on the different types of grasses offered in our area as well as the different types of minerals and grains. It was during Tom’s presentation that the rain started to come down hard. Each of the host ranches had to leave Tom to continue on his own and entertain the guests while the rest of us ran outside to move the sale alpacas up to shelter out of the rain. Lucky for me Tom has the gift of gab and felt right at home lecturing.

Saturday afternoon I, Janice, spoke about how to create an alpaca ranch store. I wasn’t expecting an introduction, but Deb Hill of Cloud Dancer Alpacas got up in front of the class to give me one. I was humbled at how she advised how great a job I had done creating my ranch store from scratch with never having any knowledge on retail before doing so.  It was a very nice intro. At the end of the class Linda Wood of Square Top Ranch gave me two thumbs up.

On Sunday I gave another lecture on how to select your breeding pairs. Basically this was an informative class on breeding up your herd.

Other speakers included Deb Hill of Cloud Dancer Alpacas (renowned alpaca speaker), Mike & Linda Wood of Square Top Ranch, and Dave & Nancy Crowley of Madera Canyon Alpacas and Fiber Works. Everyone one of these speakers did an awesome job and it was proven by the students’ compliments at the end of each day.  They were impressed at the amount of information we shared, how laid back and friendly we all were, and how much fun it was to learn and make new friends. Best of all the event was free for the entire weekend!!!!

Tom with Mercedes as the students were evaluating her fleece. Mercedes did a great job and remained quite calm throughout the entire experience. Students claimed she was the sweetest alpaca being evaluated.

Here the students were assessing four different female alpacas that were all similar in age and color after listening to Deb Hill’s lecture on how to assess fiber when making an alpaca purchase.

Some of the students at Alpacas Among Friends.

 More students at Alpacas Among Friends.

Linda, brown jacket, and Nancy, blue jacket, listening to a student give their reasoning as to which female alpaca had the best temperment, best fiber, most guard hair, heaviest female, and lightest female.

In this picture, Deb Hill, is giving a talk on how to sell alpacas in the current economy.

Here Linda Wood is giving a lecture on how to be involved with the community. It helps sales!

DMAR Royal Peruvian Princess: 2nd and Reserve Color Champion. We were really surprised when Princess was pulled up from 2nd place to win reserve color champion. It is very surreal and to me worth so much more than simply winning it from the first place line. Go Princess!

DMAR Magnum: 2nd Place. We were really happy with Magnum’s placing. His class was a total of 10 and Magnum was the youngest in his group. The judge, Ken Hibbits, remarked how pleased he was that we brought Magnum in pasture condition. Ken whispered to Tom that Magnum was really dirty. However, Ken went on to say that even with Magnum being in pasture condition his fleece was really one of the finest of the class. Magnum drew a small crowd to check out his fleece after he came out of the ring. One ranch asked us to keep in touch as she was interested to breeding to Magnum when he was of age. Go Magnum!

DMAR Royal Knight- 1st and Reserve Color Champ at TxOLAN Fleece Show. The judge, Kathy Klay, told me that very few fleeces ever get points in the 80’s, only a couple of fleeces got in the 70’s, and that most fleeces received points in the 60’s. I was very pleased when I saw that RK received 71.5 points. Go RK!

We currently have 1/2 interest of RK for sale at a very reasonable price of $5000 for this 3x Reserve Color Champ. Click Here for more info on RK. Also, RK has recently begun his breeding career. Intro price is $850 on the first 3 bookings only. Contact us to reserve your breeding.

DMAR Armani – 1st Place TxOLAN Fleece Show. Again we were very pleased to see that Armani received 70.5 points out of Judge Kathy Klay. This means a lot to us. Go Armani!

Armani is a 2x Reserve Color Champ and multiple blue ribbon winner. Armani is up for sale at 1/2 interest at $5000.Click Here for more information on Armani. Also, Armani has begun his breeding career. His intro price is $850 for the first 3 bookings only. Contact us to reserve your breeding.

Snowmass Incan Emperor is the sire to DMAR Amani. He is available for stud. For more information on Incan Click Here.

 DMAR White Russian – 1st TxOLAN Fleece Show. Well I couldn’t believe it when I walked into the fleece room on Sunday afternoon to over hear a person complaining that they have been looking for Desert Mountain all day. I wasn’t certain I understand the ranch name correctly, but listened as the person went on to say that she had been to my stall several times and all over the building looking for me. I interrupted her to ask the name of the ranch and she said clearly, ” Desert Mountain.” I told her that was me and she quickly took me over to Ruski’s, nickname for White Russian, and asked how much for his fleece. She claimed it was exquisite and she was wanting to spin it up and make some lace scarves among other items. I gave her a price and she bought it. You go Ruski!

White Russian is a 4x blue ribbon winner and either himself or his fleece has only been entered into 4 shows. This boy is a prize and is currently for sale at a steal of a deal at $4500. Click Here for more information on White Russian.

 This is Karen Christian. She is one our customers. She is a wonderful kitter and this is a hat she recently made out of alpaca yarn. Last year for her birthday her husband had her pick out some fleeces from our alpacas before they were even shorn. Karen selected DMAR Valentino and DMAR Versace. This hat is made from DMAR Valentino’s fiber.

DMAR Valentino is a rose grey. He was only 4 mths at the time of shearing. His staple length was 4 inches and it was baby alpaca quality.

Karen and her husband helped us to shear. This picture is of Karen and myself (I’m bent over the fiber) just about the roll the blanket up.  This was Karen’s first time shearing and gave her a whole new perspective on the whole fiber process.  

I’m thrilled Karen let me share this with you all. I am so happy to see what my customers end up making out of alpaca yarn. Last year I entered some of Karen’s hand knitted alpaca items into the fiber contest at SWRAS. She won 1st place and a ribbon for her other item. Karen plans on entering this slouchy hat and matching scarf in this  year’s fiber contest. I can’t wait to see how it places!

Click Here for the pattern. You must be a ravelry member in order to access it.

Congratulations go out to Lissa Howe and JC Mutchler of Chiva Risa Ranch in Vail, AZ for the purchase of the remaining 3 male puppies shown in the pictures above. Lissa and JC drove down to our ranch at noon and couldn’t decide among the three males. They were planning on purchasing at least 2, but ended up taking all 3. They said they were all so good looking that it was too hard to decide.  The pups will be guarding goats.

This does it for Vincenzo’s and Donatella’s litter. The puppies are all absolutely gorgeous and I am sure they will do their new owners proud.

We hope to be breeding Gianna and Santino in the late spring to early summer timeframe. Contact us to place your name on their waiting list.

We welcomed DMAR Prada on Feb. 3rd after waiting 359 days. Well worth the wait for this perfect little med. fawn female. She came out weighing 17 lbs. We held a name that cria contest on our fan page on facebook and Deanna Doria won with the name Prada. It was a tough decision as their were so many good designer names, but once we saw the cria we knew that Prada fit her best. She has beautiful crimpy fiber that would not straighten out as I was blowing her dry.

The dam, Kaitlyn-Rose, birthed easily. She has never had any problems birthing her crias. The issue with Kaitlyn is that her milk is slow to come in, so I am supplementing with a bottle every 3-4 hours. We are giving mom domperidone to help her drop down more milk. 

All of Kaitlyn’s crias look the same. If you wanted to know what Athena, Diego, Dominique, or Magnum looked like when born just take another look at Prada. We are super excited to have another female from Kaitlyn and look forward to adding her to our show string. All of Kaitlyn’s offspring have won in the showring and two have gone on to be reserve color champions. Kaitlyn is a wonderful foundation animal even though she is ditzy at shearing time not accepting her shorn cria for a couple of days.

 Once again the sire of Prada is HRAZ Lock & Load. His record is quite good with 4 females and 2 males to date. They all look wonderful and we will use them all in our show string this year. Click Here for more information on Lock & Load and his stud fee.

Well that is it for cria births until late September 2010. We have had a good birthing season with 5 female crias and 2 male crias being born. All are doing well and growing quickly. We even sold one of the males. Yippee!

Congratulations go out to Tammy West of Alpacas Re’al for purchasing our last female pup. We will be transporting this female to the TxOLAN Show next weekend for the exchange. We are very excited to have another of our pups go to an alpaca ranch.

We have 3 male puppies left. Contact us before they are all gone.

We still have 1 female and 3 males to select from. These adorable pups are 9 wks old and have had their first vaccination and deworming. Included in the price is micro-chipping and registration paperwork.

The pups have been living and observing their parents, Donatella and Vincenzo. They also have 3 other adult Maremma role models. They are already showing their guarding instinct. They bark when the adults bark and if they hear something first they sound off the alarm.

The pups are very healthy and quite playful. They are fast to roll onto their backs to expose a belly to be rubbed.

Contact us if you are interested in attaining a Maremma lgd.

Remember we will transport for free to TxOLAN and SWRAS.

There was no doubt in our minds that Carina was in labor. She is one of the first to the feeder in the morning and on the 30th she had no interest in eating. She stood still just humming. I called a client who never saw a cria being born and advised that Carina was in labor, but her normal birthing usually occurs around 12 to 1 pm. Therefore, they had plenty of time to come on out.

At around 12:30 pm Carina still didn’t look very dialated. I thought she would hold out until even later in the day. However, at 1 pm she kushed and then laid on her side. This is it I advised my clients. I then went on to tell them that Carina has given birth to all her crias laying down. For her this is normal. At 1:22 pm Chablis pulled her own legs out of mom and started moving around frantically. My client’s seven yr. old daughter was amazed at the whole site.

DMAR Chablis weighed 17 lbs at birth and is white. She had little problem nursing and is gaining weight. She is simply adorable.

Carina is doing well too. She loves her cria and is very attentive to her. When Chablis started to walk she tripped going onto the deck. Carina ran over to her humming hard. When Chablis tried to get up her back leg went to the side and she fell onto her stomach. Carina shrieked loudly. The clients were stunned at how worried Carina was over her cria.

Chablis’ sire is HRAZ Lock & Load. This is Lock & Load’s third female cria out of five offspring.Click Here for more information on HRAZ Lock & Load and his stud fee.

 Our blue ribbon maiden, DMAR Dominique, is bred to our blue ribbon male, HRAZ Lock & Load, for a December 2010 cria. When people feel Dominque’s fiber the first thing they remark on is how dense her fiber is. Then they are amazed at her architecture of crimp and fineness. As you can see in the picture Dominique has coverage from head to toes. She will make the Camberos’ a wonderful foundation female.

HRAZ Lock & Load was selected to breed to DMAR Dominique, because of density, typey look, coverage, and fineness. We believe this pair will give the Camberos an incredible cria. Lock & Load currently has four offspring on the ground. The very first, DMAR Magnum, is a 2x blue ribbon winner and a reserve color champion. He is also the sire to 4th place winner, DMAR Mercedes. His other offspring, DMAR Remington and DMAR Chanel, will not begin their show careers until the Fall of 2010. HRAZ Lock & Load is available for stud. Click Here for more information on HRAZ Lock & Load.

DMAR Valentino is a gorgeous rose grey yearling male. Last year I sold his fleece before it was even off his body. Valentino has a wonderul temperment and will surely be a great addition to the Thunder Mountain Alpaca Ranch. Lisa’s daughter, Lexi, will be showing DMAR Valentino in the performance classes and has already begun training.

 DMAR Domingo is now just shy of being 5 months old. His dam is AVR By Golly Miss Molly and sire is DMAR Apollo. Domingo has quite the personality and he loves to talk. Lexi has begun to halter train him and we were all quite surprised when last week he walked calmly with Raf on the way to the scale. Thunder Mountain Alpaca Ranch has plans for this future herdsire.

Click Here to view our current alpaca sales list.

Aspen, female Maremma pup, left this past Sunday with new owner, Ish Phillips of Walls Edge Alpaca Ranch, to live in Colorado. She is the first puppy to leave our ranch, but she is in good hands and will be guarding approximately 10-15 alpacas. Before she left we had her vaccinated, dewormed, and microchipped. Tom said she didn’t even cry when he placed her into the kennel. She was well behaved all the way to the airport and then even more behaved when she met Ish. It really has paid off to introduce the kennel to the pups when they were 3 weeks old. Keeping it in their area for playing and sleeping has made it less stressful on the pups.

On Monday I sent Ish an email to see how Aspen was liking her new place. Ish was kind enough to allow me to post a direct quote from his email back to me. Here is what he said: “Aspen seemed to be happy with her digs.  It looked like she slept in her coop on the straw.  I introduced her to the boys this morning.  They are a bunch of wimps.  Everytime she would get up and take a step, Max would alarm call and he wasn’t even in the same pasture as Aspen.  She seemed right at home in the pasture, just keeping her distance from the boys but always watching.  Chris took her over to the girls tonite and they were quite curious.  We saw more smarts in one day from her than we have seen in a lifetime with other dogs.  Chris absolutely adores her and can’t wait to see her full size because she probably wants another one.  In fact, put us on your waiting list for Gianna’s litter.  All i can say is aspen has really wowed us on day 1.  Thanks again to you and tom for everything.” 

What else can I say? I love happy customers and am thrilled that Aspen has a good home.

I still have puppies left. 3 males and 1 female. They are 9 weeks old now and ready to go take care of your herd of alpacas, sheep, goats, etc.. Contact me for more information.