Change of Direction

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After several years of breeding and selling alpacas we have reduced the size of our herd and now keep them as pets who contribute to their upkeep by grazing the land and producing lovely fleece at their annual shearing.

We used to have our own fleece spun into yarn but with reduced numbers we now sell the fleece to a spinning mill and buy back yarn for our hand knitting enterprise.

Our friend and neighbour, Pam White does nearly all the hand knitting and I knit scarves and other simple items on a hand operated (as opposed to electric) knitting machine.  We also sell 100% alpaca yarn in the natural colours of the alpaca and dyed wool which is 70% alpaca and 30% Merino wool and comes in many colours.

We still have our chickens and of course they are being kept in at least until the end of February when we hope the ban (due to avian flu in the wild bird population) will be over and they can be allowed to free range once again.

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 Welcome Back Pedro and Amaru

Well, it might not be exciting to you, but this is the first time ages that the weather on the farm (and probably the whole South West) has been good enough to hang out the washing.  I know you can get a tumble drier, but I am old school and love to see the washing blowing in the wind and getting a  blast of good country air.  Never mind the frost bitten fingers!!

Pedro and Amaru were sold just over a year ago but recently their owners had to move and could not take them with them, so they have come back to live with us.   They are in quarantine at the moment but will soon be re-introduced to the rest of the herd.


As you can see, they have settled in very well and I think they are quite enjoying having their own paddock and room service.

Two out of three OK

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I would like to have a photo but panic prevented me from collecting the camera.

Two events today - luckily so far the third has not materialised.  A minor offence - I put the veggies on for dinner and thought I would "just spend a few minutes catching up on my emails" and, of course got involved and forgot.   The top of the stove looked as though it had been sprayed with some sort of fire preventing foam, but it was just starch from the potatoes.  What a lovely mess to clear up.  Luckily the saucepan had not burnt dry and set the fire alarm off.  I know that can happen - not telling you how I know!!!

The second event was that the post man, who collects the mail orders going out from the business, knocked on our front door and alerted Mike to the presence of one of our alpacas on the verge outside the farm  (the main A358 road).   He (Mike) had accidentally left a gate partially open, leaving just enough room for an alpaca to get through.   Luckily just one of the older girls wandered out and none of the others had noticed before the postie alerted us to the problem.

Luckily Citrine, the escapee, wandered back in the farm gate and with the help of the talented Dolly (the dog) we managed to chase her back into the paddock where she belonged.

We are optimists, so , maybe things do not come in threes!!  Let us hope!!

One Man and his Dog

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 Wherever Mike is, Jake is never far away.  He was my best friend when Mike was in hospital but immediately upon his return, I was disguarded and ignored, except for at meal times, of course.

As you can see everything is pretty much back to normal.  

As this morning was the first time the alpacas have been dry for a while, I took the opportunity to administer their vitamins which they need over the winter to compensate for the lack of sunshine.  It is administered orally and so I have to hold the alpaca in order to get the drenching gun into the mouth.  Not very pleasant for them or me if they are soaking wet.

The hens are all shut in all the time at the moment because of the Defra restrictions in the light of the Bird Flu problem.   They should have been allowed to free range again yesterday but a new outbreak means that the restrictions are now being applied until the end of February.   They don't seem to mind too much and we have put a bale of straw in their pen for them to dismantle and keep themselves amused.   They like perching on it and scrabbling around, not to mention eating the seeds that are still in it. 

New Year at Laurel Farm

 Having recovered fully from his heart surgery Mike went to Shepton Mallet to have his hernia repaired and unfortunately had an allergic reaction to one of the pre-operation drugs, ending up in Resus at Musgrove hospital and a 5 day stay during which it was touch and go for a while.  He was home  for Christmas and is getting back to normal, but still has his hernia and no prospect of having it fixed in the forseeable future as his heart needs to get over the shock.

Today we had the hardest frost of the winter so far, and definitely the hardest in 2017.  The alpacas are looking frosted but happy.

The cria are now all about six months old and I have started halter training them.  We only had five last year and they are all males.   I have been handling them on a regular basis for some time so putting a halter on them is not too stressful.  Once they are walking nicely on a leading rein they will be tagged and microchipped (a job I really really hate doing) and then, unfortuntely they will have to join the big boys and leave their mothers.

It is good that there are five of very similar ages as they will form their own little herd with their friends and if all goes to plan will soon settle in with the big boys as the juniors for the time being until they reach adulthood and start finding their place in the herd.

All the animals are doing well.   The hens are fed up because they are not allowed to free range at the moment due to restrictions during a bird flu scare.   They are due to be let out on Friday unless the restrictions are extended.

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Weather Blues

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The grass and weeds are loving this damp, warm weather and with the best will in the world we cannot keep up with topping it and our smaller herd is not up to eating it all!!

We are hoping for a spell of dry weather soon so that we can get to grips with it all.  It is no good tring to cut wet grass as it just clogs up the cutters.

It is nice that it is warm for the new cria, although with some of the new borns we have shut them in with their mothers if really heavy raid is forecast over night.  Luckily that has not happened often.

Another New Arrival

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Another new arrival yesterday.  He chose a miserable wet day and we were very concerned that he had not suckled after quite a long time.  I checked his Mum's teats and they were still plugged so we obviously had not missed him suckling.  I unblocked them and gave him some colostrumpaste  hoping to keep him going until we could get him to suckle.

We put Mum and cria in a shelter to try and keep them warm and dry.  He had lots of attempts but could not seem to gt the hang of feeding.   I tried helping but in the end gave up as I felt it was upsetting them both and not getting a result.

Finally he seemed to get the idea and fingers crossed he will be OK.  It is a worry as if he did not get him Mum's protection early enough he might pick up an infection or Clostridial disease which is caused by bacteria that occurs widely in soil. Death is  sudden and animals are usually found dead without any visable signs.  The mother passes on immunity to  through her colostrum which the cria needs as soon after birth as possible.

He is looking quite bright and normal today, so fingers crossed.