When we were farming alpacas as a hobby back in the UK the sequence of events when it came to breeding was to drive over to a friends ranch put the female in with male, drink a glass of wine have a chat and drive home. Two weeks later we would repeat this for a spit test and then wait 335 days for the cria to arrive.
We never lost a cria or had a retained CL or any other complications.
I guess we were naive and just lucky.

Now we are running the farm as a business breedings are a much more serious affair.

For a start we usually drive much further to get our females bred so generally they are off the farm for 60 plus days together with their cria. Not an ideal situation , but that's another story.

Now what I expect to see is a series of spit tests not just one at 14 days.

Ideally I like a spit test at 7 days and again at 14 days.
Then from day 28 through to day 36 I like to see another spit test and an ultrasound exam to confirm pregnancy.
Some people draw blood and test for progesterone but to my mind the definitive test is the ultrasound.
I like to see a second ultrasound at day 60 and spit offs ever two months thereafter and possible one or two further ultrasound exams.

So during gestation I expect to see maybe 6 ultrasound exams (each one costs $20) so its a small investment. Over the same period I will have done as many as 8 spit offs.

The whole point behind this approach is to catch a lost pregnancy as early as possible and then re breed at the earliest opportunity.

An open female is costing you up to $1,000 in lost production every month....

All of which is weighing on my mind as I have an open female on the farm which I am taking for a breeding this week to Snowmass Perfection who now lives with Al and Jude at Pucara near McMinville.

Adrian Stewart