Comedy on the Farm

After the dog show was cancelled some of our friends, the Snooks, Bullocks and Lindsay Freeman came down to the farm with their caravans and dogs rather than go home and get back to the day to day chores.

Having said that they seem to love helping with our day to day chores including paddock cleaning and feeding the animals and they are also enjoying walking on the farm and visiting the local seaside resorts.

I rode past them yesterday on my quad bike gaily waiving and yahooing and went through the paddock with our males in it to feed the girls in the next paddock down. As I went through with the bike I left the gate open and headed for the troughs which is normally the cue for the girls to gallop down to be fed. Yesterday, however, they headed through the wrong gate (remember, I left it open) and headed for the males. Total confusion followed as rampant males chased receptive and non receptive females round the paddock, young alpacas were reunited with their Mums and food was entirely forgotten.

My friends were confused at first as they thought I had done it on purpose - obviously an experienced alpaca farmer would not leave a gate open long enough for such a thing to happen.

I explained my error but assured them that I could sort it out by running them into the race and from there into a catch pen to separate the different sexes and resume normal service.

This was not to be, however, as they were all far too excited and after a couple of unsuccessful attempts I enlisted their help and finally Mike noticed what was going on and between us we managed to stop unwanted matings and herd them out of the paddock and separate them back into their respective departments.

Holly, one of our older girls, decided that she would not move in any direction at all, despite bribing with food, pushing and pulling and moving the rest of the females along side her. Eventually we decided to move the males away from her rather than try and move her away and just before we implemented this plan, of course, she got up and ran to join her female friends.

None of the animals seemed particularly bothered - in fact it probably brightened their lives as they have been standing around in the wet for days and had been looking a bit dejected. Once back in their own paddock they all began calmly eating as usual.

At the end of the exercise we had ten males in the boys paddock instead of eleven. I realised immediately that it was Holly's cria who was missing and it was him who had encouraged her to move. As he is still very young we left him with his mum overnight and easily persuaded him to go home this morning with no harm done.

My friends now keep asking me what today's enternainment will be, but I am hoping it will something a little less exciting.

Back Sooner than expected

When we were due to go to our dog show/holiday we still had one female due to birth so in the end Mike stayed behind to make sure all went well. Lucky that he did as the cria needed some extra attention as the mother's milk was slow in coming down.

As it happens the dog agility show that I went to was called off due to bad weather, which is most unusual because most of us are mad enough to compete in all weathers. The fields where the show was held were flooded and although various attempts to move to higher ground were tried it was eventually abandoned because of health and safety issues when the flood water started to effect drainage and toilet facilities. It was very disappointing for all the competitors and gut renching for the organisers who put in months of work prior to a big event like this.

Hence I am home and trying to catch up with the farm accounts and making a quick entry on the blog. Today's pictures are of the new additions to the herd.

Back to normal

Well we are back to normal for a day at least. Mike is home and although tired from his journey has obviously enjoyed his stay in Thailand.

He brought back some beautiful silk and a silk shirt which I will look forward to wearing. He also has loads of photos which are great. They are not on the PC yet but will be shortly.

No particular news on the farm. Our guests are leaving tomorrow and the farm sitters will be arriving to allow us to go away for the week. Back in time for the Bath & West Show, although we will not be competing ourselves this time.

This will be the last entry on the blog until the 31st May at the earliest.

A waiting game

Mike is in the air and on his way home from Thailand and his return cannot come too soon for me. He will be staying in Salisbury tonight and we are meeting up tomorrow to go to our dog agility lesson.

The time has gone quite quickly in hindsight but there have been some long days. Also there has been a lot going on. We showed at the Devon Show as previously mentioned, another cria has been born, the grandchildren stayed for the weekend whilst their parents celebrated their wedding aniversary by spending the night in a smart hotel in Cornwall. One day to catch up and then my uncle and his partner arrived to stay for a few days and as soon as they leave on Friday Mike's sister and her husband are arriving to look after the farm whilst we go to a week long dog agility competition in Kent.

All the alpacas are doing well and the new arrival is playing with her older sisters and it is really sweet seeing the four babies lying down together in the sunshine.

Just one more birth due in May and then none until the end of June and quite a few through July.

August is completely clear and we are close to achieving our target of condensing the birthing season to April May and June rather than having them spread throughout the summer. Apart from convenience, we feel that it gives the new cria a few months of warmer weather and nourishing grass so that they are well set up to get through the winter.

The paddocks are looking really lush now and we have lots of wild flowers in the bottom fields which are not being grazed at the moment. We have also left a long strip which is not topped or grazed to allow the wild flowers a bit more space.

Sales in the shop are going well with quite a few holiday makers buying our imported knitwear and the hand knitted sweaters made from our own alpaca wool.

There will be some more photos when Mike gets back with the camera, so watch this space.http://www.alpacas-for-sale.co.uk/forsale.html

Another girl

It was a beautiful morning and a welcome change from the recent poor weather. At about 9.30 a.m. I noticed that Amethyst the next mum to be was looking uncomfortable. She kept lying down then getting up, had a roll and then stood with her legs wide apart and her tail in the air. I wandered down to get a closer look and could see the nose of a cria starting to push out.

Our latest addition hit the ground at 10.20 a.m. this morning, with a little help from her friends.

Amethyst was struggling and moaning every time she had a contraction and when the cria's legs came out they were crossed and so I staightened them out but she was still having a bit of a problem and needed a some more assistance. Once the new arrival was out she made rapid progress and was suckling within an hour and a half, which is always a relief

It is a shame that I have not got my camera at the moment, but I am hoping to get a friend to take one tomorrow.

This is the fourth cria of the year and they have all been girls so far which is most satisfying. Long may it continue.http://www.alpacas-for-sale.co.uk/

The Devon Show

My son, David stayed overnight on Thursday to help load the alpacas ready to transport them to the show. As it turned out I did all the advance preparation - packing the white show coats for the handlers not the alpacas, making sure we had the numbers for showing, hay, haynets, halters, leading reins etc: but he did everything on the day barring actually going into the show ring - despite encouragement from friends.

He used his own vehicle to tow the trailer and helped load and unload. brought the alpacas ring side so they were ready for the handlers (me and my friend Pauline) to take into the ring and generally ran the Laurel Farm contingent.

We started the day with a farmer's breakfast in the canteen opposite the show ring and included cornish pasties and ice cream in our daily diet as well as several cardboard cups of coffee and tea.

The weather was poor and the judges and stewards did their best to move the showing through quickly.

We were quite pessimistic about our potential show results because most of the young animals we were showing have very fine fleece with a long staple meaning that since the younger ones have never been shorn the length had pulled out the crimp. Surprisingly and most welcome were Laurels Lady Dorcus 2nd place in the Fancy class, Laurels Lady Emilia 3rd place in the intermediate female fawn class and Laurels Don Pedro with a 2nd in the intermediate brown male class.

We may be reviewing our shearing policies with a view to having the fleece at its best for the shows next year. We will be having a show results page on our website shortly.http://www.alpacas-for-sale.co.uk/

Getting Ready For the Devon Show

Well I got that wrong!! The weather forecast for this area was for some rain but I was not expecting the torrential rainfall over night. If I had I would have brought the alpacas that we are taking to the show into the barn but it's too late now, they are absolutely soaked.

I left them out until about 4 p.m. this afternoon since they were already wet and the atmosphere was very damp and then got them inside where they instantly lay down in the straw which has stuck to their wet fleece. Pity there is not a novelty class - they could all go as Worzel Gummage look alikes!! Shame I have not got the camera because they look quite funny really.

Still they have got a few hours to dry out so fingers crossed that they will look at least normal again by the morning.

David is coming down this evening and coming to the show with me tomorrow as Mike cannot do it. We still have two girls whose cria are overdue so mother is on alpaca watch with the phone number of a local shepherd who has agreed to come in if needed.

I am not expecting very good results tomorrow because their fleeces have blown i.e grown too long which pulls out some of the crimp and generally does not look so good. Still it is good to have a presence at the shows and it is a good place to meet people and keep up with the latest information. Luckily the Blue Tongue zone has not caught up with us yet so we are still able to travel to shows in this area - some which are in the Blue Tongue Protection Zone are not open to us because we are in the surveillance zone.