So, another year already! And the babies have been arriving quickly. This year all cria have names beginning with ‘H’. First to arrive, way too early, was little Halfpint. Mum, Etta, was very attentive and despite not having a lot of milk she has been a great mum. Halfpint, white, is still a tiny girl but boy is she feisty. She is full of character and runs rings around all the cria that have followed. Second up this year was a strong boy, named Hullabaloo (Baloo for short) – son of Dolly and Dandy, a light fawn and already showing off his fantastic fleece. Baloo was quickly followed by Pinky’s first cria – Honolulu Lulu (checkout the song). Lulu is a cheeky monkey with the most marvellous eyelashes and whiskers, a mid-fawn girl sired by Beck Brow Bees Knees of Amberly. Next up Agatha gave birth, quickly and early in the day, to a huge bay black girl sired by our own Emoji. We scratched our heads for a while but named her Halona (of happy fortune). Hooligan came next, also sired by Emoji from mum Charlotte – so another bay black cria – but a boy this time. Charlotte is light fawn so Hooligan’s colour is a bit darker than we expected. After Hooligan Bridget produced a white daughter – named Hallucination (Luci for short) – sired by Dandy. A week or so later and Ember gave birth at 355 days to a jet black boy called Higgs (Ashtonelle Higgs Boson). Higgs was sired by Amberly High Palladium. We were expecting to have to wait a while for the last three cria, but on the 22nd June our homebred grey girl Ashtonelle Delaney give birth almost five weeks early, and late into the evening to a very surprising appaloosa boy. Despite being premature he grew very quickly. Officially, his name is Ashtonelle Hodge Podge, but he mostly gets called Splodge or Spotty boy. As he grows he gets more and more arrogant but he gets away with it by being so very handsome. At the start of July, cria number 9 came along in text book fashion – a beautiful warm fawn colour. She is named Haneeka, meaning graceful. She’s not always graceful though when chasing the other cria in their regular zoomies! A month after Haneeka’s arrival, Harley gave birth to another fawn girl – with a little star on her forehead. We really struggled with names, we like names that don’t appear on the British Alpaca Society register for alpacas – so some of our favourites were out. We finally settled on calling her Hirondelle, or Elle or ‘L’ for short. Hirondelle is French for swallow – and as there were lots of swallows flying and diving when Elle was born we thought that was very appropriate.