Sunday 20 January 2008

Sunday at Laurel Farm


Mike said - whatever happened to our Sunday breakfasts? They were traditional in our house until we moved to Laurel Farm.


So I sent him to our village shop for mushrooms and cooked a mega Sunday breakfast for nine - 3 people and 6 dogs!!!


Eggs, bacon, baked beans, mushrooms, toast, butter and marmalade. Several thousand calories there, don't you know.


Well we decided paddock cleaning was the most exciting way to burn off the calories and set to before the rain came in as promised.


Whilst paddock cleaning is a boring job, it always encourages the alpacas to come to whichever paddock we are in and gives us the opportuninity to study them and make sure there are no tell tale signs of an unfit alpaca without having to bring them in to the barn for a full condition check.


The Mum's who have been separated from their cria are looking a bit forlorn, but their cria seem to have adjusted very well and are looking quite relaxed and tucking in to hay and grass to make up for the loss of mother's milk.


We have received an email to say that the spring show at Bristol is on the 29th and 30th of March so we have to choose which alpacas to take. We have had great success so far and this year's cria are stunning so we are hoping for good results this year too. In 2006 we had a reserve champion brown female at the Devon County Show and in 2007 we had a brown female champion and a reserve brown male champion at the Devon County Show followed by a First in the brown female class at the Bath & West Show and several other lower places.


Our stud male, Alario, has produced six beautiful female cria this year and a very promising male. The only down side is that we compete in Dog Agility and unfortunately the spring show clashes with a dog agility competition. Still, I suppose as alpaca breeding is our business, we will be going to the Bristol Alpacas Spring Show. Who knows, we might get a rosette or two.


I have been struggling with my camera today. We sell expensive hand made Aran Sweaters and I have been trying to photograph them but have been having trouble with getting the colour right. When they say the Camera does not lie - they are lying!! I spent ages fiddling with the menu on the camera, but am still not totally happy with the results. Evenually I got something close to the right colours and they will be going on our website in the next few days. http://www.laurelfarm.biz/.


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