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Monday, September 12, 2011

Did you know...

that when an Alpaca gives birth she is said to have unpacked?
It’s a fabulous play on words don't you agree? ~ horses foal, cows calve, sheep lamb and alpacas unpack!
A baby alpaca is called a cria.

I knitted this super cute Alpaca was from one of Linda's menagerie of animal patterns (her etsy shop)...Linda if you are listening how easy would it to be to knit up a cria?.. I think I fancy this girl 'unpacking'


ps.. I was very tempted to stick a few pins in her ~ she might make a handy pincushion? What? you don't know about my lucky pincushion swap? Come join in!


* Just because I thought it was interesting: Females are ready to mate two weeks after they unpack, the act of mating causes them to ovulate. The male seduces the female by orgling (singing). If the female is receptive she sits and allows him to mate.  If she’s not receptive she spits at him!
Two weeks after a female has mated they do a ‘spit-off’ – if she has conceived she will spit at him, if she hasn’t she’ll be ready to mate again and will sit.  Breeders call this a ‘sit or spit' ~ ha!what a great way to confirm a pregnancy.
Info from here.

7 comments:

m. bloom said...

Okay... that was hilarious... Thanks for making this insomniac giggle!

Linda said...

How beautiful Shannon, what a lovely blog post:)
Love
Linda

Anonymous said...

That little guy is super cute. Wish I could whip up things like that! Lovely xo

Tania said...

"Unpacked" is FABULOUS! Even better than "doink" (and entirely unrelated, just to clarify).

Indigo Inspirations said...

they are so cute....I love alpacas and 'unpacked' is fantastic

W-S Wanderings said...

I LOVE alpacas. And now that I know that the males orgle, females unpack, and there's that whole sit & spit thing, well I'm endeared for life! I will have alpacas on our farm someday, but for now I should maybe just knit myself one up, cuz oh my gosh, YOURS IS ADORABLE!!!!

The pin cushion swap, I'm in! You didn't hear from me for a spell because I was busy fretting about whether I could produce a pincushion worth of swapping. But I have an idea. Nothing terribly original, but it will hopefully be cute. So, yay - I'm gonna play along! I'll email you later this week or weekend.

Rebecca said...

Sit or spit... love it. How like us humans hey? ;-)