Time for alpaca breeding... or not?

Fellow alpaca farmer David St.Laurent brought over two of his alpaca breeding males this morning. The intent was to breed one to our female Noodle and the other to Abby. But, to my surprise both girls (that should have been open, ie. not pregnant) spit at the boys and wanted nothing to do with them.

The only explanation is that our ten month old male cria, Seamus, that was weaned from his dam, Gritona, only about 10 days ago must have been breeding or at least attempting to breed these only two open girls in the pasture. It has been documented that crias this young can be fertile but normally in the alpaca world the males need to be closer to two years old before they are able to breed successfully. It is possible that as induced ovulators that the girls might not be pregnant but are experiencing a false pregnancy do to hormones released during the attempted breeding by Seamus.

So, David and I decided to just let the boys run with my girls for a few days to see if time would change things. Once we let them all out together is was clear to see that all the girls were testing positive for pregnancy as everyone was spitting and running from the boys. The other girls were supposed to be all breed so that was comforting to witness.