Black Meadow Suris

April 26, 2008 - We were rained out on our regular shearing date on April 6th so we were pleasantly surprised when Kenneth Chapman from Ladysmith Alpaca Farm called on Friday to say that he had gotten a cancellation for today. Kenneth brought a mobile shearing shed where he was able to lead the alpacas into for shearing. At that same time, we trimmed toe nails and gave shots. We got nine alpacas sheared (all of the males, and all of the nonpregant females). We also saved Bobby Socks for the next shearing date with Jonathan Sides. Jonathan will hand shear our show alpacas as well as any later term dams.All went well with the shearing and the rain held off until we were finished. The alpacas look a whole lot thinner without all of that fiber. Merlin's fiber weighed in at 13 pounds!

December 07, 2008 - Ivy League Farm captures two blue ribbons at the 2008 Carolina Classic Alpaca Show at BelleauWood Farm. Rummy's Rose and Strawberry Fields Forever both get blue ribbons in their yearling female halter classes!
November 25, 2008 - Black Meadow Farm attends Riverside Elementary School Career Day.
October 19, 2008 - Black Meadow Suris returned from the VAOBA Show loaded down with ribbons from the halter and fiber spinn-off classes. In total we received: Three (3) 1st Place Ribbons Two (2) 2nd Place Ribbons One (1) 3rd Place Ribbon One (1) 4th Place Ribbon One (1) 5th Place Ribbon for a total of EIGHT Ribbons! Both Odyssey and her daughter, Bobby Socks received 1st place ribbons in the fiber spin-off competition. The highlight of the show was Kona capturing a 1st place ribbon in Shorn Dark Suri Males 2Y+
September 1, 2008 - Black Meadow Suris announces a teaming agreement to co-market our alpacas with Ivy League Farm from Kenly, North Carolina. Our two Suri alpaca farms are up and coming and offer a wide diversity of genetics for buyers to choose from. Plus, we both have a couple of great herdsires that we will be able to co-market! We look forward to this relationship and marketing our herds.
August 17, 2008 - The Summer is going fast and so are we. We have been working hard on getting the farm in shape for the Fall. Our farm face-lift is almost complete and the store is getting close to completion. We shuold have all of the aplacas back on the farm shortly (back from breedings) and we are certainly looking forward to that.
July 1, 2008 - Nanda, Kore, River Cactus, and Odyssey are all confirmed pregnant! It looks like we will have a great crop of Spring 2009 crias. In addition, we have had two other dams on the farm and they have bred to Merlin and Kona. We can't wait to see the results of these pairings!
May 27, 2008 - Black Meadow Suris has just completed another article for your reading enjoyment (we hope). The article deals with the issues involved in Agisting or Hoteling your alpacas at another farm. The article can be viewed on the Education page. It is still in final draft form but should be in final form by the end of the month. It just has to go through a couple of more review processes before we send it out to see if we can get it published.
May 26, 2008 - Black Meadow Suris launches its online store! We are now open for business - in a limited way. The first products that we will be selling will be alpaca fiber but shortly after that we will be adding alpaca products like socks, hats, scarves, and sweaters. We are targeting July 1st to add more products! The Online Store replaces the Schedule A Visit on the menu bar at the top of our web pages. The Schedule A Visit information has moved to our About Us page. We launched early in order for the search engines to aware that we were out there. Stay tuned as we move forward in an electronic world.
May 14, 2008 - The last of our 2008 crias was born today. A stunning white female cria. She weighed in at 14 pounds and was up and running in short order. We were a little surprised that she turned out white since Cactus is medium brown and her sire, Jax Crossfire is also medium brown. Well that is the nature of the business - it is an art, not a science. Still, we are content because she is so lusterous. In fact, it is hard to capture her in pictures because she shines so much.
May 13, 2008 - There is a new kid on the block at Black Meadow Suris. Our new black male suri alpaca was born at 10:30 a.m. this morning and is doing well. The dam of this new cria is Kore, one of our best foundation dams and the sire is Epazote.
April 30, 2008 - Two down and two to go! Our second cria of the year arrived at 7:30 a.m. from Willow! A Jax Crossfire female weighing in at 19 pounds. As you can see, she is light fawn in color and appears to have good lock and coverage. The mother and cria are doing fine. We guess that the old adage is true, "A watched pot never boils" because we took our eye off of her and the next thing we saw was mother and cria walking through the field.
April 26, 2008 - We were rained out on our regular shearing date on April 6th so we were pleasantly surprised when Kenneth Chapman from Ladysmith Alpaca Farm called on Friday to say that he had gotten a cancellation for today. Kenneth brought a mobile shearing shed where he was able to lead the alpacas into for shearing. At that same time, we trimmed toe nails and gave shots. We got nine alpacas sheared (all of the males, and all of the nonpregant females). We also saved Bobby Socks for the next shearing date with Jonathan Sides. Jonathan will hand shear our show alpacas as well as any later term dams.All went well with the shearing and the rain held off until we were finished. The alpacas look a whole lot thinner without all of that fiber. Merlin's fiber weighed in at 13 pounds!
April 18-21, 2008 - Renee attended the Alpaca Futurity in Louisville Kentucky. There were many great show champions to see. She was able to connect with many other suri breeders as well as a couple of good vendors that may help supply our store with products. We look forward to attending the Futurity next year with some of our top quality alpacas.
April 6, 2008 - While we always welcome the rain, it rained most of last week and throughout the week so we had to cancel our shearing event. There is nothing worse then trying to shear a wet alpaca. We are in the process of rescheduling and will either reschedule for this weekend or shear all of the alpacas on our second shearing date in May. Unfortunetly, it is supposed to rain this weekend as well so it does not look good. Stay tuned for more information!
April 4, 2008 - We are kicking off our farm front entrance face-lift project. We plan on planting grass, flowers and flowering bushes all along the property entrance. Check out our progress as we work on our farm face-lift through the Summer!
April 3 , 2008 - Odyssey, and Nigra River arrived safe at the Colemans for breeding to Captain Morgan. They will be bred in the next week after they have settled in. We expect them back during the Summer.
March 30, 2008 - The alpaca shearing dates have been set! April 6th and May 8th. We will have Kenneth Chapman from Ladysmith Alpaca Farm here to do the shearing on April 6th. Kenneth will be bringing a mobile shearing shed where he will be able to lead the alpacas into for shearing. At that same time, we will be trimming toe nails and teeth as well as giving any necessary vaccinations. On May 8th, Jonathan Sides will hand shear our show alpacas as well as any later term dams. On both dates, we will be having some visiting farms bring their alpacas to be shorn. The farms that have already signed up are Fleur de Lis Suri, and Keene Alpacas. We look forward to a fun filled day as our alpacas get their annual hair cut. If you would like to stop by and see alpacas being sheared, just let us know at renee@prokops.com!
March 20, 2008 - Three new windows in our upcoming store. We still have a lot of work to do but it is starting to take shape. In the next week or two we will be combining our store project and landscaping project into one as we grade in front of the store and knock down a couple more trees. We will be getting a couple of loads of top soil to add to the side yards so that we can plant grass.
March 15, 2008 - Virginia Classic is a great success as we took home 5 ribbons. Sequoya received a 1st place for the Fiber Spin-off and Odyssey received a 2nd. In the halter classes Kona received a 1st for Bred and Owned and a 5th in dark colored yearling male. Sequoya received a 2nd for light colored yearling male.
March 13, 2008 - New cria on the farm! Nanda has a bouncing baby boy cria weighing in at 16 pounds and is going to be called Black Meadow's Kena. While Nanda's due date was April 1st she sure fooled us and had her cria 2 weeks early. Renee came home from running errands to see Nanda strolling through the field with cria at her side.
March 7, 2008 - There is going to be a lot going on this month. We have two girls, Odyssey, and Nigra River, who will be leaving the farm for a short time to be bred to Captain Morgan. We expect them back during the Summer.
March 2, 2008 - Renee and 25 other interested alpaca people attended the VAOBA Alpaca Neonatal Seminar at Virginia Tech. The seminar covered reproductive anatomy and physiology, breeding and pregnancy diagnosis options, gestational development, care of the pregnant dam, normal and abnormal criation and care of the newborn as well as the high risk cria.
March 1, 2008 - You may have noticed that we do not have a catchy logo! As with all projects, this one has taken us longer to get to then we would have hoped. We wanted to get just the right logo, so we have placed our faith in our niece, Melinda who is an accomplished artist. Check out her progress on creating our logo.
February 16 & 17, 2008 - Carolina Alpaca Celebration (CAB), in Concord, NC, Kona got a Second Place at CABO. Improving from a fifth place last year!

Black Meadow Suris is located 11 miles West of Fredericksburg in Spotsylvania, Virginia (halfway between Richmond and Washington, DC)