Alpacas are such interesting creatures: they're super curious, but very leery, and they are fierce. When it comes to reproduction, they exhibit some fascinating characteristics: they can ovulate on demand, which means they can be very selective about who they breed with; their gestation period is generally about 11.5 months, but can go for well over a year since they can put their gestation on hold if conditions aren't right, which means it's really hard to predict when they will birth; They will almost always have babies between 7 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon; they don't lick off their babies like cows or sheep or goats, they just sniff them; and, if our first fully witnessed alpaca birth is representative of what's normal, baby alpacas (crias) start breathing and making that characteristic alpaca humming noise very early on in the birthing process. All in all, a pretty cool experience to witness.