Alpacatude

It's been a long time since we've posted!!

2009-12-15T19:33:00.041-05:00

It has been way too long since any of us have posted on this blog and there's so much that's happened since then that I don't know where to start to catch you up. Maybe I'll start with my Crias born this year.

My first was born on July 2nd. I was already upstate and right down the road from the farm when she was born. I was vacationing at my Brother and Sister in laws home, they are 2 minutes down the road from the farm. I was so happy to see a black girl when we first got there. Her name is Destiny and she was such a peanut when we first saw her. This my husband Tom holding her, the one that wants nothing to do with this business. lol

And this is her today! She's really a pretty girl and I can't wait to get all my crias to the shows next year. Her sire is Whistler's Peruvian Ebony King who is new to breeding so we'll see what he passed on to his crias in a few months.

My second born is a real cutie named Domino. He was born October 1st and he's very different looking. I just love all the spots on his face and under his body. It's hard to figure out what color he is in the pictures. He's actually a light rose gray! When you split his fleece all you see is gray and crimp, and lots of it!

He has such a cute face you just want to watch him all day. His Sire is Hollywood's Hilltop's Paparazzi and he has inherited his color and fleece from him for sure. Hopefully he becomes a champion like his dad!

Last but certainly not least my little girl Tiffany. Born on October 15th. Her Dam's name is Audrey Hepburn so I named her Breakfast at Tiffany's or Tiffany for short. She is a really nice dark brown color with black points. I'm so glad about that because I'm breeding for black and gray so if she had to be brown then the black points just made it that much better for me. Her sire is Captain Nemo well know for passing on his nice crimp on to his crias.

Okay that's it for now, talk to you soon!

Patty Ludwig

Spring is in the air!

2009-03-22T12:18:00.044-04:00

Classes are now in session over at Rosehaven alpacas for us agister’s. On Saturday March 14th some of us got together at the farm to learn how to administer the alpacas monthly shots. Some were a little hesitant at first but in the end we all did very well at it. Unfortunately none of us thought to take pictures. Oh well, one Kodak moment lost!

But the following week on the 21st we got together again to work with the alpacas that will be going to the spring shows. Some will also be competing in performance. Laurie's does a great job with the help of Angela and Janet in the training area. Robin and I were getting our alpacas halter trained. And I must say the alpacas did very well.

We then decided to simulate a show with Michele and Rob acting as judges to give us all some experience in the ring. It was a fun filled and very productive day to say the least!

Until next time!

Patty Ludwig

alpacasinharmony.com

2009-02-16T14:06:00.003-05:00

A big happy birthday hug to Angela, seen here with a fifth place ribbon for showmanship, at the Empire Extravaganza. She showed Summer Sunset for us and was really great. Now that she's twelve years old we won't be seeing her in the youth division anymore but hope she will think about continuing to show these animals who seem to love her a lot. Now that the bridge (we were calling it the paca-walk because in dog agility we call it's counterpart a dog walk but everyone else calls it a bridge so I guess we will too) is painted and at Rosehaven, along with the teeter, we are really looking foward to warmer, mud free days so we can practice. Only six and a half weeks before North American and we really need to practice.

Happy Birthday again from your birthday pal,

Laurie Sue Bakay

Crystal Glen Alpacas

Waiting for spring

2009-02-03T12:35:00.005-05:00

There was a hot spell at Rosehaven on Sunday. It was at least in the thirties and the sun was glimmering on the snow. I saw some of the girls pronking around in the snow, as I drove up. It was wonderful to get and give some kisses, even without carrots and apples for them. Summer is waiting for spring to start practicing obstacles.

Here's a preview of the paca-walk, pre paint. The teeter is also done. Really look foward to getting these set up at Rosehaven.

Laurie Sue Bakay

Crystal Glen Alpacas

Meet Trista

2009-01-31T18:38:00.003-05:00

What an amazing weekend I had! After a short flight to Boston, I made my way to Groveland, MA to visit with my beautiful girl, Trista. She is currently staying with Pat Badger and his family at Alpaca Grove until she is bred in May. By August, she will be with her new sisters at Rosehaven.

It was hard to leave her behind, but I know she is in good hands. You will all get the chance to meet her at the North American Alpaca Show in April. Then, she will be heading to Kentucky for the Futurity Show. Pat thinks that she is special enough to compete at that level. She has amazing fleece, a beautiful face and an easy going personality. Stop by the Alpaca Grove booth at the shows to meet her.

The big storm in the Catskills December 19, 2008

2008-12-19T18:38:00.006-05:00

Hi All:

Well the snow started around 10am this morning and stayed with us through the afternoon. stopped before 5pm today. much earlier than predicted, but that's okay. All the girls are in the big barn and refuse to come outside, however the boys are snow bunnies. Look at them - they are covered in snow. I took this from the great room's doorway. I wasn't going out there. Doesn't it look like their little barn is wearing a snow hat?? I am happy to report that we put our tree up today. and by that I do mean up. (not decorated). Rob went out of his way to get a humongous tree. It's about 10 feet tall but I swear it's almost that wide! We had to get a rope and throw it over the beam to haul it into place. The fire is blazing and we are waiting for the plow to come to scoop us out. the coats that Patty, Laurie, Judy and Robin found have been put to good use and keeping some of those cria's warm. I can't believe how big some of them have gotten. Huge! I wanted to also show this beautiful picture that Rob took at sunrise the week of Thanksgiving but I didn't find it till I downloaded my snow boys pics today.

Happy Holidays to all!!!

Michele

Monte wins his first Blue!!!!

2008-12-03T21:28:00.012-05:00

Monte won 1st place at the New Jersey show last month and we are very proud of him. We'll see what the next show brings!

Monte is co-owned by Rosehaven Alpacas

Patty Ludwig

Alpacas in Harmony

Happy Thanksgiving To Everyone!

2008-11-29T10:33:00.004-05:00

It was a beautiful day on the farm as we met to enjoy the herd before the really bad weather kicks in. Just like a family holiday, we all brought food and laughter to the table and to the pastures. The alpacas enjoyed a feast of baby carrots and bags of apples as we marveled at their ability to inhale the food faster than we could provide it. New faces mingled with the old, and everyone had a great time. Michele and Rob were the perfect hosts - thank you for having us!

Never wanting to leave the farm without some new bit of knowledge, we traipsed to the barn for the evening meal and some cria weighing.

As the winter snows start to fall, I'm not sure how many of us will be up in the mountains and out on the hill with the girls. They all have wonderful fleece coats to keep them warm and happy and sure footing on the ice. I can knit a coat, but have yet to figure out a way not to fall!!!!!

Autumn Kisses to you all!

farm location

2008-11-26T18:08:00.003-05:00

Well, Jay and I are thrilled to tell everyone that Crystal Glen Alpacas will have a physical home. Jay is on his way back from North Carolina, as I write this,where we entered into a contract to purchase 15 1/2 acres of land in Bear Creek. It will be some years before we are actually established there since we've got so much to do in preparation but we're on the way.
So we are very grateful to be agisting at Rosehaven because we have such a great opportunity to learn. So whether you have land or plan to agist long term I suggest taking advantage of any opportunity that comes up to help out at the farm you are currently agisting at and learn all you can about caring for these glorious animals.
Happy Thanksgiving to All
Laurie Sue Bakay
Crystal Glen Alpacas

Videos at Rosehaven

2008-11-23T12:10:00.033-05:00

I thought it would be fun to share some of the videos I took while visiting my alpacas at Rosehaven.

I was trying to capture something cute from Harmony but was surprised at what I got.

This one is so nice to watch. You can see the nice variety of alpacas that are at Rosehaven.

This is a cute one of three crias playing. One being my little Harmony.

This is my other cria Alex the cutie.....who's so tired. What a life!

Hope you enjoyed them!

Patty Ludwig

Alpacas in Harmony

alpacasinharmony.com

Penny's Thanksgiving

2008-11-19T13:01:00.003-05:00

We're so excited to tell everyone that Penny is finally coming to Rosehaven. Thanksgiving afternoon Jay and I will have the joy of introducing her to some new companions. Needless to say I'll be up there on Friday to work with her and anyone else who shows interest. On my last visit I had the honor of doing some clicker training with Brandy, Attache, Electra and Hannah. It's very exciting and I'll share more as we go along. For now here's the new girl at Rosehaven.

Laurie Sue Bakay

Crystal Glen Alpacas

Soggy Alpacas

2008-11-15T10:13:00.003-05:00

No one wants to go outside today in the Catskills including all our alpacas. Can you blame them! we have 4 seasons up here and then that other season that sneaks in between fall and winter and between winter and spring. Mud season!!! When white alpacas look brown.

Of course if you look closely you will see that 2 of the alpacas will not leave their hay feeder. They don't care about the rain. The rest will only peak their heads out of the doors.

Hope you are all inside with a nice fire, good music and a good book!

Cheers

Michele
Rosehaven Alpacas
www.rosehavenalpacas.com

Rosehaven and the discovery of Alpacas

2008-11-12T17:12:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to feel like an old knowledgeable Alpaca breeder now. We only started 5 years ago. But I feel that way because of the new alpaca people who have recently come into our lives. They have shown me how much I have learned in those 5 years, and how much I can share with them. And how much I love to share my experiences, knowledge and love of alpacas with all of them. I was hardly bored in my alpaca life - but I am awakened to new and different alpaca avenues because of them. I love to learn and I hope you who follow this blog love it too. here is part 1 of Rosehaven's beginnings.

We have had a farm up in the catskills since 1995. And except for our two horses Abby and Reba (Reba has passed on I'm sorry to say), never had any thoughts about any other animals or livestock. We both work in New York City and have never had vacations at the same time, so the country farm became our vacation away from the city. We got to like it so much up there that we started looking into ways to make a living up there. To be able to stay there full time. But the only things we came across were investment property or restaurants. Then one day Rob was coming home from the little town of Jeffersonville, and a local alpaca breeder's herd had escaped onto the road. Now we had seen a few signs for alpaca farms, and always thought we would check them out. But "alpacas" we thought they must be just a quaint Catskill thing. But here was Rob, staring at real alpacas. They actually surrounded his car, and if you have ever been face to face with an alpaca they are extremely curious creatures, and they look at you with these marvelous wondrous big eyes, and necks that go on for days. And for a second you are taken back wondering what is going on behind those gorgeous eyes. Now these alpacas had just been shorn - so they all looked like aliens. (but he didn't' know that till we did more research) He had no idea what they were and by the time he helped herd them into the farm and met the owners he was beginning to laugh about the whole experience. He came back to the farm and told me about these really funny looking creatures. He thought one was going to come up to the car window and say "ET phone home". He made me look them up on the internet. Well you know where that got us! We were laughing and looking at the pictures and praising how incredibly cute they were. We forgot about them for that day, however, they weren't done with us. Slowly we started seeing images of them in many places. On the TV we saw the "I Love Alpacas" commercial, Then we saw something on an airplane about them. Then it was another article in a newspaper. and we were getting hooked. We joined AOBA to get some more information. And they sent the info - and we started reading alpacamagazine. I still love that magazine. I was absolutely amazed at how far ahead the marketing was then many other items I had ever seen. As a kid I wanted to raise horses. I was so addicted to horses , that I still have my china horse collection and all those Walter Farley books. In fact I might read them again. But, you know, life gets in the way of many things you want to do. And the trick is to get yourself back on the track of what you want to do with your life. We dabbled in showing dogs (oh so briefly I shouldn't even mention it!). Except it did give me the experience of birthing puppies. Which is quite a different experience of birthing crias. and I also saw how awfully political showing dogs can be. Really not my favorite thing to do. In showing dogs to "finish" them. you need to leave your dog with a handler for most of the year. I love my dogs I don't' want to give them up for all that time. I was only doing it as a lark. So now we have 2 beautiful female show boxers as lap dogs!!! oh - too bad. we love them any which way!!!

Next time I'll fill you in on how we went from Internet search to actually buying our first alpacas. Because within a couple of years they ended up in the front field facing our porch!!

Meet my growing herd

2008-11-11T20:55:00.105-05:00

After 10 months of investigating the alpaca business I finally made my purchase in January 2008. I purchased 2 bred females that were both due that same year and half interest in a young male.

This is my gorgeous true black girl Hannah. She is absolutely beautiful in person. I fell in love with her the moment I layed eyes on her and I knew she would be part of my purchase. She was already six months pregnant at that time so my first cria was just around the corner. Hannah gave birth right on time with no problems and it only took about 10 minutes for it all to happen. Pretty good for a first time mom!

I got the message at 12:00 pm June 18th 2008 and of course there was no way I could get up there until the weekend. I live on Long Island and the farm is about 3 hours away upstate. Hannah gave birth to medium rose gray girl named Harmony who is just as beautiful as her mom. She also inherited her extremely soft and fine fleece. She will definitely be at the shows in the spring of 2009. Can't wait!

Then we have Audrey Hepburn who is such a wonderful mother. She's already given birth to 2 males and 2 females. Audrey has a very nice mix of colors on her which enables her to throw almost any color. She has a dark rose gray body with black legs and ears, sliver gray neck, a white face and raccoon eyes. She is a must for my plan to bread for color. Plus she's just so pretty to look at.

Audrey gave birth to a light fawn boy on September 30th 2008. We named him Alexander Magnus after his Sire Romantico's Peruvian Magnus. That is also where he got his color from I'm sure. Alex is so spunky and full of life, he's already jumping on the females and the young males. Hopefully he'll grow up to be a nice herd sire one day. Right now he's just adorable!

And last but not least there's Monte who's co-own by Rosehaven. He's a true black boy with fiber that looks wet it's so shinny. He just started the show season this spring but didn't do as well as we expected. He took a fifth place at 2 shows. Since then he's really filled out some and his fleece is looking really nice. He'll be at the New Jersey show in November so we'll see how he does there. He's still a cutie.

Patty Ludwig

Alpacas in Harmony

alpacasinharmony.com

My journey began...

2008-11-09T10:06:00.025-05:00

It's hard to believe that my story is only 2 1/2 months long. Knitting with alpaca has always been my choice. The way the yarn feels in my hands....the feeling of the finished product next to my skin. So it only seems logical that I should have alpacas in my life.

After a tearful parting with my college aged daughter, my husband was trying to distract me from my maternal loneliness. On the way to the wineries of Ithaca and a kayaking adventure on our first enormous lake, I noticed that there was an alpaca farm. "Please! Please can we stop there! Just for a few minutes!" Well, that few minutes turned into 2 hours and I was hooked. I was told later that it's called "Alpaca Fever". Well I had it...and I had it bad!

The next two weeks were spent scouring the internet for anyone close to me on Long Island that had alpacas. No one was jumping out of my computer. Then I did a search for farms nearest to me. And I discovered Rosehaven. After a few emails, Michele and I finally had the chance to chat. By this time, my husband, Michael, realized that this was no passing phase. We planned a trip to the farm. And the rest is history.

Two beautiful girls, Autumn Dancer and Maggie joined our family. Autumn is now pregnant with her first cria and Maggie will just be adorable for a while longer. The opportunity to have Michele and Rob in our lives has been a pleasure. Agisting has proven to work for us, except that it is such a trip! (in more ways than one!)

As we learn more and read more and hear more from the alpaca people that we encounter, Michael and I are discovering that this business is truly for us. We are enjoying work ng together towards a common goal. We are laughing together and creating our path.

Most importantly, I have stopped crying!!!

Robin Shatzkin
Autumn Kiss Alpacas
http://www.autumnkissalpacas.com/

The Journey

2008-11-08T19:58:00.002-05:00

We've all taken different roads to get to Rosehaven and we all bring special gifts to give and recieve from these animals. My attraction to them was inspired by seeing my sister, Judy, knitting with a fantastic soft yarn. So the research began and hardly a day passed without hours on the web learning. The next step was reading and finally visiting and listening and buying. I'll be at Rosehaven often since my goal is to train my alpacas, and anyone elses who is interested.
With nine years of dog agility in my profile I am really attracted to the performance classes of competition. Tomorrow we'll start some basic clicker training, combined with Tellington TTouch. At this point in my alpaca story I've been jumped on, kicked, spit at and ingnored. (and all that had nothing to do with training) The only thing that bothered me was being ignored. I'll let you know how tomorrow goes.

Laurie Sue Bakay
Crystal Glen Alpacas

How this all began

2008-11-08T17:38:00.037-05:00

It all started in May of 2007, a year after Michele & Rob from Rosehaven Alpacas moved their herd to their 40 acre property in the beautiful Catskills area in a town called Callicoon, upstate NY. I had just discovered alpacas on the internet a couple of months prior. I was vacationing at my brother in laws place up there for the weekend and little did I know that Rosehaven was 2 minutes down the road from his house.

One day we were at a local bar and restaurant called The Stone Arch. My brother in law Joe was talking to a gentleman who was sitting at the bar. Joe informed us that the gentleman was a stage manager on the show "The View" which we all thought that was very interesting. But what I found out on the way home was that Joe had actually made plans to bring the kids to his alpaca farm the next day. When I heard that I almost jumped out of my seat. I didn't tell anyone that I was becoming obsessed with the alpaca business.

I had been investigating the alpaca business on the internet every night since I discovered them in March 2007. That was all I thought about until I made my purchase from Rosehaven in January 2008. Michele took me under her wing and helped me through the decision process. She was always there when I needed her which was pretty much all the time. Now I'm an alpaca owner and starting my new business. I'm agisting (boarding) my alpacas on Rosehaven's farm which bring me to the reason why this blog exists.

Since I've joined Michele & Rob at Rosehaven, four more couples recently purchased alpacas from them and are agisting there also. So we all thought it would be cool to start an alpaca agisting blog. You will meet them all here as soon as they get their posts underway.

You will see a lot of interesting things between the five of us agisters and Michele & Rob. This should be very interesting!!!

I'll talk to you again soon.

Patty Ludwig
Alpacas in Harmony
alpacainharmony.com

PS... This is the alpaca love of my life Hannah.