I am off to the North Somerset Show tomorrow. Unfortunately I shall be going on my own as we have 4 females all due or over due so one of us has to stay at home to keep an eye on things.
Mike has been away at a dog agility competition all weekend, so he will take over from me here.
The vet phoned to say that the skin scrapes she viewed under the microscope showed no sign of mites or any other likely cause for the irritation which is causing the alpaca to either rub off or lose her fleece coverage on her ears and nose. She is going to speak to another vet in the practice whose expertise is dermatology. In the meantime I am continuing with her high zinc diet, she has had a vitamin injection and I am considering returning to the Cam Rose regimen again.
The female who was thin seems better since she has been on medication, although she is not enjoying having it every day and is becoming more difficult to catch. I try to make it as quick and stress free as possible, but with the best will in the world force feeding cannot be a very nice experience.
Having done all the chores - changed the water, topped up hay, and fed everyone, I have printed out the list of things to take to the show. I was hoping to show 12 alpacas but David and Mike cannot come so it will be just my friend, Pauline, and me and as there are only two classes we will only be able to show 4 animals. We will still take six with us which is the maximum our Rice horsebox will take comfortably. We did squeeze 8 in for the Bristol spring show but it was very tight as some of them are nearly fully grown now.
We have been looking out for a Stock Trailer and are hoping to buy one in time for the Devon and the Bath & West Shows. If anyone out there knows of a good second hand preferably Ifor williams livestock trailer, 12ft with dividers, please let us know. We will then have an old but refurbished Rice Horse box for sale.
We will bring all the alpacas who are going to be shown in to the barn tonight for ease of loading in the morning.
The two cria who were born at the beginning of April have been coming in each night because the weather has been so cold and uncertain, but they are very strong and porky now so they and their mothers and the other soon to be mums can go into a paddock with a shelter over night from now on. We will move them back into the paddock near the house in the mornings so we can observe them and watch for birthing problems and of course natural births.http://www.alpacas-for-sale.co.uk/studservices.html
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