August 22 this little charmer was born!  We knew her mom was in labour the night before, and despite the fact that we hovered in and around the barn the next morning, Shauna-Marie found a brief moment alone to give birth so we missed it!  
The cria didn't nurse on her own all day so we had to milk the mom and feed it to her via syringe.  By Day 2 she was still not nursing, so we were bottle feeding her lamb-replacer along with the milk we nursed from the dam.  No matter how hard we tried to teach her to nurse she refused.  The mom was willing but the cria was stubborn!
We had to leave the farm for the weekend, and on Sunday night the "farm-sitter" called to say that the cria had started to nurse.  After 4 days of bottle feeding she had decided to give mom a try.
We've called her "Nugget" because when we'd show up for her feeding we'd call out "come on little nugget, come get your bottle" and her ears would prick up.  We decided she liked the name.  It suits her - she was very little when she was born ( 13 lbs) and even at Day 11 she is only up to 18.4 lbs.  She's a feisty one, though.   She loves to run outside and chase her shadow.  She's also not afraid of the other alpacas or the sheep, which is a huge relief.

The pullets are now 11 weeks old, and should start laying in the next couple of months.  I did find a tiny tiny egg in a nest one morning, but I can't imagine that any of these new girls could have been responsible... it's still a mystery.  
At 4 weeks the meat chicks got moved outside into their tractors.  This summer we are raising the white rock X variety.  So far they seem so very different from their slow-growing cousins.  They have indeed grown much faster than the dual-purpose, so much that at 4 weeks they are a couple of pounds already.  Their feathers are slower to grow in, and it's been good to have them outside because they seem to be feathering up more fully now.  They have enjoyed being outside, running around and chasing bugs so in that regard they seem like any other chicks.  They are also quite a bit more docile, which makes it easier for the husbandry - they're not running away and crashing into things when you try to change their water

We're still waiting for the crias to be born - we have 4 more to go.  We also did some breeding this month, using 2 studs from Canadian Comfort Alpacas.  Next summer should be exciting - it will be great to have some new bloodlines brought into our herd.  We're planning on starting a new home for the males, carved out of the back end of the hay barn.  The young boys are just about ready to be moved out of the ladies' area - they're starting to get frisky.  So that is a priority for the next few weeks, along with getting some electric fencing up.  The coyotes have been particularly bad again this summer.  It's hard not to hate coyotes.