What Headache?

We decided to introduce Emperor and Drake a couple of days ago.   They circled each other to start with and this was followed with a prolonged session of head butting, including taking a run up to each other to give the headbut more force, mixed with hind leg balancing acts.  Luckily their horns grow backwards so there was no locking of horns.  After what seemed forever, they finally settled and it seems they have decided their pecking order.  I think Drake won, but it is hard to tell as they seem to be best buddies now.
The young bucks just ignored the whole thing - unlike young male alpacas who would have become very excited and probably started to tussle with each other.   Emperor is limping a little and I cannot find anything wrong with his feet so I am thinking he might have done a little damage when battling with Drake.  Perhaps when he was balancing on his hind legs dancing around like a boxer.  It does not seem to be getting any worse so we hope he will be sound in a day or two.  I am surprised they have not got headaches.   Maybe they have - it is hard to tell as I don't speak goat.

The barn builders returned on Monday and by the end of Tuesday they had erected the framework.   They have left to finish off another job but should be back next week to clad the outside and concrete the floor - or maybe they will disappear again for a while between cladding and concreting.   Mike is going to get Larry, who has done work  for us before, to build some blockwork internal walls so we can have the farm office, somewhere to make a cup of tea and a toilet in the new barn.  It seems quite big so there should be plenty of room for hay storage, feed and animal handling.   We will also use it at kidding so we can keep an eye on the does when they give birth and also to keep the kids warm so we don't have the issues we had this year with a couple of the kids becoming hyperthermic.

Dolly's sheepdog training is going well.   We have done a course of six lessons and with Christmas coming up followed by lambing, we will not be doing any more until the spring.  In the meantime I am hoping that we can build on what we have done so far.  All being well I shall probably be helping our instructor with lambing. She has 600 sheep (not sure how many pregnant ewes) so it will be a good experience to give me confidence if I need to start rummaging in alpacas.  In my experience they rarely need help, so I  have not had to intervene very much.  I attended a lambing course a couple of years ago, but pulling a dead lamb out of an old oil drum does not compare with the real thing.

The chickens don't seem to be laying at all at the moment.   We think they must have a stash somewhere as most of them look healthy and it seem unlikely that none of the eight  are producing.   We will probably buy some more point of lay hens shortly.   I actually had to buy eggs this week for the first time in years.

We will be opening the farm shop on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays (afternoons)from now until Christmas and bringing up the alpaca cria as an added attraction.  We have also bought a small loom which will be arriving shortly.   The last batch of wool which we had spun did not live up to expections but should make nice soft throws.   Mike says he would be quite interested in trying weaving.  Something to do in the long winter evenings.  Watch this space, but don't hold your breath.

New Blood

Emperor is our latest aquisition.  He is an awesome addition to our little goat herd.  As you can see he has a lovely long straight back, a really handsome face, well proportioned limbs and (as you cannot see) an excellent temperament.    He is in quarantine at the moment and has a little whethered kid as company.   The kid is also in quarantine until Emperor's thirty days are up.  They are the best of friends and Andy (the kid) is actually looking at  one of our dogs,not trying to escape!!

We have had a nasty shock with 7 and 9, one of her half brothers.   Both were scouring badly and I medicated them for coccidia and took  faecal samples to the vet to see if there was any other cause for the problem.   We were particularly concerned for 7 who has probably had her immune system compromised by her recent illness.   She has recovered from the swelling but seemed to be going downhill again.

The samples went in on Friday but I was concerned when I had not received the results by Tuesday morning, especially as both kids seemed to be detiorating and 7 kept falling down and could not get up again.  I phoned up and expressed my concerns quite forceably.  Tessa phoned me back and I  was horrified to hear that 9 had a Faecal Egg Count of 5000 and 7 had 1000.  No wonder they were going down hill.

We had wormed all the goats at the end of June and took a 20% sample from individual members of the herd  in late September which was reported to be completely clear so we did  not worm at that time.   Somehow in less than two months the egg count has gone up from zero to the above.  Seems unlikely, although the weather has been very mild.  More likely there was something wrong with the samples or with the testing.

Needless to say all goats have now been wormed and after a couple of days of being under par, both 7 and 9 seem to be perking up. 

I spent the weekend at Earls Court helping Pauline on the APDT stand at Discover Dogs.  Seems that dogs still need their new toys, beds, equipment and bling despite the economic problems of the country.  As usual I went intending to spend nothing but soon found some must have items, such as an additive of seaweed which breaks down plaque on their teeth.   Sandy has awful teeth but she will be 18 in April - more worrying is that Romie  (6)has always had plaque which bones and teeth cleaning keep at bay but never get rid of it totally.  I also bought new nail clippers, a year's supply of wormer for dogs, 5 balls on a rope which were only £1 each but could not buy the pink head collar that I wanted for Dolly because luckily the colour was out of stock in her size.

We have two females alpacas who have skin problems which we have never been able to clear.   They breed every year and their cria do not seem to have inherited the condition.   They have been treated with everything under the sun over the past few years.  We are now trying zinc added to some alpaca nuts each day in the hope that it may be a zinc responsive condition.

Bad weather is holding up the start on the new barn.  If it is fine on Friday we are expecting the builder to come and lay concrete pads for the main supports, which will be good.  Once the concrete has set they should be able to proceed with the erection.

Hunt the Egg

Well - we do not have many hens at the moment - some died of old age presumably, the fox got some, but we were getting two or three eggs a day until recently when it went down to only one.  We resigned ourselves to chosing eggs for cakes or frying but not both on the same day until either the spring or until some more start laying again.  Nick and Mike discovered the nest of 18 eggs pictured above when they were going around checking the fence posts on Tuesday!!   Mystery solved.  They were in a hay rack in one of the shelters.  One of the down sides of free-ranging hens!!  Still I love seeing them wandering around the place.

Over the past few weeks we have been worming, drenching with ADE, and giving the herd a preventative dose of Fasinex which eliminates liver fluke which can be a killer.   We weighed all the cria again and the photo shows some of them looking rather bedraggled and fed up in the catch pen, and looking forward to going back to their six acre paddock where most of the herd spend the winter months.

We were pleased that one cria (recently weaned) had maintained the same weight but all the others had made significant gains.

We kept two mums back when we sent the herd back down as their cria were ready to wean.

Mike and I went to an Anthony Clarke training session yesterday.  The Sunday was fully booked, but Kim, the organiser fitted us in for a session at her training venue which is outside.  We were very lucky with the weather.

It was only about half an hour away and we really enjoyed it and found it very useful.   Mike's new attempt at making Jake wait was very successful.  He was able to leave him for more than two jump's distance until the very last exercise when we thought he was starting look as though he might revert to his bad old ways, so instead of allowing this, I held him at the start.

Dolly, as always was very good and caught on to what she was asked to do very quickly.

High Winds and Deep holes

Last night was very windy and wet and although we did not notice it at first,  one of the fences dividing the paddocks had actually blown down.  16 out of 20 posts in that line had rotted at ground level.  Mike and Nick had to abandon their plans for the day and set to demolishing the remaining fence and clearing away the wire to make the area safe for the grazing alpacas.

We were particularly upset because when we first cleared the farm we paid out thousands for supposedly good quality fencing which you would expect to last.   Apparently around the time we had our fencing done there was a problem with the tanalising (preservative) of much of the fencing timber supplied.   There have been reports of problems in Farmers Weekly, even, according to Nick.

We are not alone and I have found out that several other alpaca breeders are having similar problems.   Now Mike will have to check all the fencing and put in extra supports to any posts which are suspect.   Not only that but the post holding up the farm gate has rotted and the wind pushed both the fence and the gate out of place.    They have replaced the gate temporarily with a spare steel gate.  Eventually they will fit a new wooden gate.

Mike skillfully fitted his mini digger under the full size digger which was used to do the ground works for the new barn.    He thought it would make a good photo and he was right!!

The other photo is of the mini digger in the hole behind the existing barn where they excavated earth to level the site for the new barn.   At first it was a big shock but we quickly saw lots of possibilities for it.   In effect we have been given a lovely big flat area surrounded by high sides giving complete privacy.   Mike is going to shore up the sides with railway sleepers which should give the area a pleasant rustic appearance and it can become a sunken garden, patio, or something similar.



It is starting

Mike received a telephone call yesterday evening to say that the digger was on its way, so we quickly called all the dogs indoors and Mike opened the farm gates to admit a huge lorry and trailer carrying an equally huge digger.  At 7.30 a.m. this morning Danny, the digger driver, arrived and commenced work.  By lunchtime he had completed the footprint of our new barn and started the levelling process which includes bringing in extra earth from other parts of the farm to form a level base.   The goat mountain and the big bank inside the farm gates have been removed and used as infill.  He is also going to take some earth away from the back of the existing barn and level that site whilst using the earth to continue the levelling process for the new barn.  Trevor, has now arrived with a big tractor and trailer to ferry the earth around.

It is absolutely amazing how he handles the machinery - he even scrapes off excess earth from the grass just as we would rake it off the edge of a lawn.

Dolly went training again yesterday.    She was promoted to another field with a flock of 80 ewe lambs.  She made a very good job of rounding them up and holding them and Freddie, our trainer, was impressed and pleased that Dolly was calm and the sheep were not stressed by her.  We spent most of the hour teaching her to "walk on" behind the sheep.  Some of the time she was on a long line in front of us and whenever she started to go too fast which might upset the ewes, Freddie would pull her back on the line whilst I told her to lie down.  This was to teach her the speed needed to make the sheep advance without stressing them out.  She really enjoyed her trip in the landrover which took us to the new field, especially as it was an excuse to sit on my lap.

Luckily I was wearing my farm overalls because I had had "normal" clothes on underneath as I was going to collect Zach and Tara who are spending a few days of their half term holiday with us.

We have set up a catchment area in the winter paddocks so that I can start to handle the cria on a more regular basis which helps to make them more cooperative when they are bigger.   Already after just a few sessions they have cease struggling and resign themselves to being held gently until released.
They all seem to be thriving quite well except one of the two cria that we weaned and he has lost a little weight so we are keeping a close eye on him.

First Weaning

 After many trials with my laptop I phoned PC Doctor in Chard who usually help me out with anything to do with IT.  They suggested I take it in to the shop to test it and of course found that everything worked perfectly well.  There was only one thing that the young child/computer genius in the shop did differently so I thought it might be a eurika moment, but no, when I got home all was as before, so I had to call them for a home visit.

The owner of the shop came out himself - probably felt like a break and an opportunity to see what we keep behind the big wooden gates at Laurel Farm.  He was really pleasant and within a few minutes identified the problem.  I had keyed in the BT Fusion wireless key instead of the Home Hub wireless key.  What is BT Fusion, I asked.  Well I still don't know, but it sounds very useful.  This was an extended case of not reading everything on the label. In this case, both key  numbers were clearly displayed on the back of hub, but I fixated on one of them and did not try the other.   Seems really daft now, but still  I have no excuse now for not blogging.

I had the same problem trying to book tickets for a train journey to Whitstable.  I am going to visit my father's brother and my friend, Pauline is coming too.  I kept inputting the information and the ticket price kept coming up as £106+ but I finally realised that it was the price for two tickets and not the individual price.  I felt somewhat vindicated, however, when I was watching breakfast TV this morning and Vincent Duggleby from Moneybox Live was talking about simplifying the tarrifs for energy.   It was mentioned that booking rail tickets had been simplified, but he said that he had recently tried to book  and had still found it quite tricky, so I am in good company.

We dosed the alpacas against fluke (a nasty parasite that thrives in wetlands and causes fatal liver damage if it takes hold) and also condition checked as usual.  Some of the females suckling cria could do with a little more weight but two in particular were cause for concern and as their cria were the eldest we moved the adult females down to the winter paddocks but left the two thinner Mums behind.

Their cria were a little lost looking for a while but they are now staying with the herd and getting over their loss.  Both are males, so, sadly, they will probably not get near their Mums again.   Females tend to stay longer and eventually, once weaned, can rejoin the main herd and bond again.

Mike has sold the great big JCB which he bought when we first moved on to the farm.  It has certainly saved us a lot of money but has had its day and is now going to a new home.   He now has a smaller digger which will come into its own around the farm and especially when we need trenches for services etc: for the barn conversion.

He is having one more go at teaching Jake to sit at the start of his Agility runs.   All going well so far and he hopes to try it out next time he goes training.  As always what works at home often goes pearshaped at a different venue.

Dolly missed her sheepdog training because of poor weather on Wednesday but is going tomorrow instead.   Will report on how she gets on when let loose in the field with the sheep instead of in the training pen where I have more control.

Time Flies

Quite a few people have mentioned that I have been lax in my literary duties with the blog!! I must admit I did not know it was quite such a long time since I updated it.  My internet connection on the laptop was very slow and my son, David, took it away and diagnosed a fault with the wireless card.  He supplied and installed a dongle to replace it, but I have fallen at the last hurdle with an apparent inability to connect with my home hub.   That means that blogging has to take place on the farm computer in the barn.  Not very appealing in the evenings.  I will have another go at the laptop shortly.

Another excuse is that our TV died, and although we do not watch all that much TV in the summer, we thought it would be a good idea to replace it so we have bought a modern TV with LCD screen LED back light etc:  Not a huge one, but 32" is about as big as we could stand in our little log cabin.  The thing is it is really riveting.    Everything is bigger and better.  Mike can actually work out which car is which when watching Formula 1 and the scenery looks great in Escape to the Country, Sheepdog trials etc:

Since the 13th September when I last blogged, I went to the annual Veterinary Issues Day run by the South West Alpaca Group and found the speaker quite interesting but the second speaker was unwell and so another alpaca breeder who is studying for a PHD gave a very interesting talk on parasitology.   We have FECs (Faecal egg count) done by our vet to avoid long term use of wormers which can encourage resistance to the treatment in the worm community.  We worm when there is a significat presence of worm eggs in the dung.  The talk highlighted the importance of taking individual samples as opposed to pooled samples, which I have been doing, and she had also been doing some interesting research into the effects of wormers on cria when weaned.   Stressed livestock are more likely to seccumb to disease, parasites etc: and of course having your mum taken away is stressful for the cria.

I decided to have some individual samples tested and the results were very interesting and although I knew that each alpaca would have a different level, if any, of infestation, I was surprised at how big the difference was.  As a result we have changed the wormer we use, as a once off, as two of the alpacas had a presence of tape worm.   This is usually not particularly harmful, but we decided we would try and get rid of it anyway.   After  24 hours we moved the females down to the winter paddocks which have not been grazed for several months, hoping that they will have shed the eggs before moving.

Tessa, the vet, came to carry out pre-movement TB testing on some alpacas which were about to go to their new home and whilst she was here I asked her to look at Maddy's shoulder again to see if she thought I should take her into the surgery.   She agreed that the swelling was increasing and thought they should withdraw some fluid and send it away for testing, so I took her in and after a few days the results came back showing that the swelling did indeed contain blood but the suggestion was there could be an underlying tumour.   I was not surprised, but obviously worried.    We decided to let nature take its course and keep her on metacam to control the pain and see how it went.  

The swelling continued to increase and she spent most of the time stading up and panting and so last Monday Tessa came and euthenased her.   I held her leg to make the vein stand out and her heart stopped before the entire dose had left the syringe so she must have been ready to go.  Mike buried her next to my dear Tilly Tonkers behind the barn.

On a more cheerful note, Dolly is going great guns with her sheepdog training.   She absolutely loves it and she is going out into the big field next week, which is apparently much sooner that expected with a novice dog.  Her agility is also improving.  It was mainly her weaving which was holding her back but she has found out that it is more fun if you go fast.   She does a bit of a Diesel scream as she goes through them.  I hope it is a good omen because Diesel Designer Blue to give him his full title is a very successful agility dog and he is her grandsire.

We have ordered our new barn so that we can start converting the old barn into a dwelling in the new year.  It should be arriving in about a month and in the meantime we are hoping that the groundwork will take place so that it can be erected as soon as it arrives.  Robbie, our architect, came along on Thursday to finalise a few points to enable him to alert the Building Regulations Department and get various reports which strange initials which you have to have to comply.   We have arranged for gas to be piped to the new build at a very reasonable price because the pipeline runs through our property anyway so there are no complications with having to dig up the main road or anything.

Seven, the sickly kid, is in remission at the moment but she is not right.  Her twin sister, Eight, is always with her, which is sweet.   The other five kids are together most of the time but Seven and Eight are often to be seen cuddling up or in the shelter munching at the hay when the others are out and about.

Chickens are not laying much, but still enough to keep us in eggs for domestic use.  No surplus for the neighbours, though.

We put the male alpacas in with the does and the buck for a short time whilst we were clipping toe nails and worming the females.    Pedro and Charlie climbed goat mountain.