Well she couldn't help being born in the barn!! This is our first birth this year and it's a lovely dark brown girl by Alario out of Lady Charmain. She is absolutely gorgeous. She was born just before Tessa, the vet, arrived to check on three alpacas who are going to their new home later this month. We decided to have a pre-movement TB test done on them. We expected the test to be negative as we practice pretty good bio-security and as far as we are aware we have not badgers on the land. We also beat the bounds every day with the dogs and hopefully they leave their scent around the place, but you never know. The results were negative so we can breath again. Apparently a positive result is always true but alpacas are prone to false negatives, so the test is not fool proof by any means, but at least we have tried to do the honourable thing given the options that are available to us.
The puppies are growing rapidly and have a constant stream of visitors which is very good for their socialising. Chris who lives along the road brought her two daughters in to play with them this afternoon. Both the puppies and the children enjoyed it very much. We have them in the kitchen instead of in their little enclosure so much of my time was spent running around with a wet cloth clearing up the puddles. Romie is very good at letting people handle the pups and is quite relaxed with the other dogs now.
Chris has a horse and two ponies, one for each daughter and yesterday I went out for a hack with her. She rode one of her daughter's pony and I rode the 15.2 gelding. I have not ridden for a number of years and even then did not have much experience, but I really enjoyed it. The weather was great - brilliant sunshine and no wind for once and we went on routes that I had not seen before including some woodland rides and across Burridge Common. Apparently I did not do too badly as she has invited me again in a week or so. I am having a little difficulty in walking today, but it was well worth it.
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