Wednesday 15 April 2009

First kill

Well we wanted the kittens to keep rats and mice down, but now that Polly has killed her first mouse, I am not so sure. I was clipping topnots in the catch pen when Mike told me she had got a mouse. She killed it and then kept playing with it to try and make it run around again I think.

We are now starting the 2009 matings and spitting off the females that were pregnant at the end of last year to make sure they have kept their babies through the winter. The boys have a hard time at this time of year because they get spat at and kicked a lot and only occasionally have the reward of a bit of "romance".

We have bought a new pen to hold a single alpaca to make husbandry easier. I am hoping that this will mean that I can do most tasks on my own so that Mike can get on with other things.

We went away for Easter (to a dog show, of course) and David and family looked after the farm. They had a lovely time too as the weather was very good for all of us. He also drenched the alpacas to prevent fluke worms which are one of the biggest killers of alpacas, they say.

We went to Beer today which is a delightful seaside village/town near us. We had a lovely lunch of freshly caught fish and had a table overlooking the sea. Not much work has been done today!!

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