Yes, Les. It has happened to me.

Todays title is directed at Les from Wellground Alpaca Stud.  She said that I was in danger of turning into mad chicken woman and it has really happened.  I don't feel bad about it though as I realise that most of our customers feel the same.  I get sent photographs from customers showing me our girls in their new homes and yesterday a lady was kissing and stroking her new birds before they went into their box for the journey.  There is no doubt that those pekins are going to be spoilt.  She didn't laugh when I said that I give the chickens Ready Brek made with water during the cold weather to keep them warm.  Her husband did, but that was only because she does the same. 

It's not so bad with alpacas as we give ongoing support to anybody who buys from us so we get to see them on a regular basis.  Actually what I am trying to do here is prepare myself for putting these two cute boys up for sale, Condor and Piper are great friends and I would really like them to stay together.  They will be up on our website tomorrow when I update the sales list.  They are both halter trained and walk quite happily side by side.

Ashdale Condor

Ashdale Piper

We have been topping up the alpacas with alfalfa mixed with their concentrate during the cold weather but we had two of this years babies refusing to eat hard feed.  One of ours, Bonnie, and one belonging to a client.  I got advice from Rosemary of Westhill Alpacas and it worked on the little boy that doesn't belong to us but Bonnie stubbornly refused to give in and I was getting really worried about her as there isn't much nourishment in the grass at this time of year. They are getting fed twice a day in the barn and she would just stand there while all the others tucked in.  We resorted to holding the two refuseniks back when we let all of the others out in the hope that they would eat once they were hungry.  Bonnie would just stand there looking at us but the little boy got his first taste of alfalfa and was addicted.  He now gets as aggressive as a baby can when the food is put out and is first with his nose in the feeder.  Bonnie finally gave in this morning eating so daintily, it seemed to take an age but the alpaca crack got her too and this evening she couldn't wait for their dinner to be put out.  I now have two babies pushing the bigger animals out of the way to get to the troughs. 



Never work with children or animals

We're suffering from the big freeze here but as it has only just hit us and should be over by the weekend we can't complain too much.  We have been having such fun lately.  On Saturday we had visitors that we had looked forward to meeting for quite some time.  A lovely couple who have had previous experience with alpacas and want to build a new herd.  Really looking forward to their repeat visits.  They came over at pretty short notice as the weather had been so wet that we were all checking that there wouldn't be any rain.  Si and I still looked as though we had been having a mud fest and the alpacas had joined in but it stayed dry while they were here although there was still a chilly wind.  It was good enough that we could walk around the paddocks and show off the alpacas. 

Paddock cleaning is now hard work as the poo is frozen to the ground and we have to hit it to loosen it first.  We must look quite a sight bashing the ground as we walk around.  Still, we can still look on the bright side and think that the paddocks are being disinfected while we sleep.

The chicken side of the business is going from strength to strength with chicks in brooders, eggs in incubators but it was probably a mistake to put a breeding trio under the bedroom window.  The silkie cockerel does like the sound of his own voice before first light and for such a little fluffy bundle of cuteness he has a really loud mating call.  Chicken kiev anybody?  No?  Ok, I suppose I can just move them.

Country Smallholding had been in touch too.  They wanted to know if they could send a photographer to take some shots of chickens for their mag.  This morning he arrived and he wanted chickens on their own, with pigs, with goats and then some with alpacas.  We resorted to bribery and scattered corn for the chickens but the pigs just kept showing their backsides and we were dashing around them but trying to avoid shadows from the barn and fencing.  That's the problem with this time of year, the sun is so low in the sky that it creates long shadows. 

The photographer was particularly taken with the sebright cockerel but trying to keep him on his own was nigh on impossible. The man has the patience of a saint and it was a fun distraction from chores for us.   

We then all walked around so he could take some close up shots of the alpacas.  Heaven was true to form and ran over as soon as she saw the camera, it didn't matter that there was a stranger behind it.  Whichever weaning he tried to get in shot Heaven was always in the way.

Having fun had to be paid for so the afternoon was spent cleaning out all of the hen houses and putting in fresh wood shaving topped with lots of straw. That should keep all the chickens warm of a night.

The other day one of the hens had laid an egg on the ground and Tilly had picked it up thinking that it was a ball.  She walked around with it in her mouth for about half an hour, occasionally putting it down and kicking it to make it roll.  She then picked it up with a bit too much enthusiasm and broke it, well, she has now discovered what an egg is and loved it.  Today the hens were all out free ranging but Tilly then started barking from one of the hen houses. She never troubles the hens and they play quite happily around her so I went to investigate.  She was barking because a hen had laid an egg in one of the nesting boxes and she wanted it but couldn't reach.

Oh Dear, What Can The Matter Be?

I must apologise for the lack of blogging.  It has been a really busy time for us and as it was the first Xmas and New Year without Dad, I more or less just wanted to ignore them.  The year ended on an absolutely terrible note when we found Nata, one of our really old Chilean girls out of sorts on Boxing Day.  She was eating out of our hands but just wanted to sit in the field shelter on her own, but her daughter stood guard with her all day.  We called out the vet and he thought she had a slight infection so gave her antibiotics.  She didn't really improve and then on 28th she just seemed so tired and I sat with her in the shelter just stroking her.  The vet was called again and the hard decision to euthenase her was made as we think she was over 20 and she was having difficulty holding up her head by this time.  PM showed nothing so we have all made the decision that it was probably just old age.  I was definitely glad to see the back of last year.

This year has started really well apart from the mud.  It was such a gift after last winter, in fact we were even out pottering on Xmas day without coats it was so warm and sunny here.  The grass hasn't stopped growing and we had stocked up on extra hay in case the alpacas had to rely on it if it snowed and they were all stuck in the barn.  We have been struggling walking up the hill as the mud seems to envelop our feet and it takes quite an effort to pull them back out again.  Poor Si even had to resort to carrying the hay to the paddocks because the surface was too soft to take wheels.

 The hybrids come into the barn for their daily dust baths as they have completely destroyed the grass in their pens although we do now have a Beechwood Blue that is going to be having a bath and blow dry tomorrow, we don't know what she was doing today but we couldn't believe our eyes when she was queuing up to go to bed tonight.  She was completely caked in mud from head to foot.

We have also had a lovely email from Stuart Sutton, you may remember he came out a few weeks ago to take some photographs for a book.  Stuart is a freelance photographer and has worked for quite a few authors.  The top 2 photographs below, along with 1 or 2 others, are going to be published in 'Keeping Chickens' by David Squire in the Spring. You can tell that Stuart is professional, he even managed to get the chickens to pose for him.

Whereas, I had to resort to bribery and get out the bucket of corn to get the pekins that have just gone up for sale to allow me to photograph them.

Oh, What A Day

I could do without these shorter days, it doesn't even work getting up earlier because you have to wait for it to get light enough to do the outside chores.  We have had a couple of days of gales, you know the type ........and they called the wind b*!!*?%s, anything but Maria really.  Nothing like Jayne and Debbie have had but we're obviously not as tough down here.  It's back to normal today with only a light shower and quite pleasant to be outside if you can disregard the mud.  It is cold enough for the grass to have stopped growing but we have a huge store of hay in the barn so all the alpacas are quite happy.  Must admit to being a bit late putting the fresh hay out yesterday because we are very muddy so it is taking a long time to walk around.  Feet keep sticking in the mud or having to walk really slowly to stop myself from falling over.  Poor Wilhelmina gave me a fright, I though she had a graze down her face but it turned out to be mud on her nose that had dried.  She doesn't look happy at me turning up late with supper.

We've had a lovely day, we had visitors who are thinking about starting an alpaca business and they turned up to see our farm.  Obviously the first thing that happens when visitors arrive is that the ketle goes on for coffee, we were allowed a little time to talk but the temptation was too much for the children and they wanted to get down and dirty with the animals.  They had come well prepared with well scrubbed wellington boots.  We took full advantage of their children, their son topped up the hay while their daughter fed them alpaca nuts.  Jemima and Chance were obviously the first to come forward to be fed by hand.

The wife was really taken by the knitwear as she is a knitter herself and was particularly interested in pursuing that side of the business.  We then brought one of this years cria out to show what to look for in a fleece and I must admit even we were taken by the crimp and density.  When we identified him we realised that he wasn't even ours.  He belongs to a client and was the first cria from our own home-bred stud male, Ashdale Cooper.  We are consoling ourselves with the fact that we have sold a fantastic male so that should make our clients really happy and that should be the aim of any business.  With the genetics in him we shouldn't really have been surprised.  Coopers father is EP Cambridge Samson, who resides at Wellground Alpaca Stud, and was Supreme Champion at one of the largest alpaca shows in the UK.  We are so glad we used him as we have more of our girls pregnant by Cooper and we now know that we are going to produce some fantastic cria this year.  The investment in great stud animals has really begun to show.

We came back in and Si started to go through the fleece statistics that we had got back from the States last month and obviously the kettle went back on.  I thought that the hens were being a bit restless but we couldn't figure out why.  Si then suddenly spotted a fox and ran out.  The fox ran along the hedge, he had bitten one hen, bantams had flown up onto the barn roof.  Once Si came in I noticed that the alpacas in the bottom paddock had all congregated at the fence so off he went out again.  Mr Fox was back but that was soon remedied by putting two of the younger boys down there to stand guard.  We could see everytime the fox came close as the alpacas stopped eating and stared at him as though to say 'Come on then if you think you're 'ard enough'.  The alpacas won and the fox hasn't been seen again, hens are back happily roaming around the paddocks with their own fluffy security.

The best news is that our visitors today bought a hat for the daughter and the son got yarn so that he can learn to knit and make his own so if they do decide to opt for a change of lifestyle we will have a new young knitter in our midst.

Click, Click, Click, Click, Click

We have only just sat down to relax and I have just remembered that I should do another blog because I promised somebody this morning I would put a picture of our pigs on.  We put out clean straw right across their pen in readiness for the snaps but then more important things cropped up.

We have had a visit from a photographer who wanted pictures of a selection of our chickens for a book.  When we checked out the author later on Amazon it turns out he has written quite a few books about chicken care and they look so good that we have ordered a couple ourselves.  Once the photographer had seen the alpacas he was completely enamoured with their gentle faces so his camera came out again.  I was so jealous when he showed me the pictures he had taken, they were very much superior to anything I could have taken and he seemed to have taken hundreds of shots in less than an hour.  I think we will be having another visit from him.

We then had a few people arriving to buy chickens so by the time we got back to the pigs they had buried the straw and look as though they had been having a great time.  I think there was a small patch of their clean dry straw carpet left in the far corner but they will probably deal with that tomorrow morning before we spread more out.  Don't know if these qualify for Rob's muddiest animal contest because I think that only applies to alpacas.

Talking of contests, Rosemary has set a challenge to alpaca bloggers to decorate their field shelters so that is something else to plan.

The weather doesn't seem to know what to do at the moment.  One minute the sun is shining and we are out working in tee shirts, the next minute the rain seems to be flying across the paddocks sideways. 

The postman arrived with the Vitamin A,D and E that we had ordered.  We like to give all the alpacas a dose monthly from September to March and although they are not due their next injections for another 10 days we had started to worry as we only had enough left in the medicine cupboard to do 2-3 of them.  We also had a delivery from Mole Valley with another lorry load of timber for Si to build another chicken shed.  We have some girls ready to go outside and some week olds to move into the larger brooder.

It is getting so busy around here but also getting to be a lot more fun which I have been particularly glad about today as it is my dad's birthday, 1st one since he died,  so my sister and I have been consoling each other by text, facebook and phone today. That's another 1st over and done with.

Beware - Crime Prevention Campaign

This seems the fastest way to get this information out there.

I have just had a telephone call from a woman claiming to be from the Crime Prevention Campaign telling me that I agreed to support them back in September and my artwork for an ad is on it's way to us.  She then asked for our postcode.  This was ringing no bells with me and she then told me that I had agreed to pay £99 for 12 months advertising.  Once I told her that I do everything by email and I would have to check she then hung up the phone.  Her number was withheld.  Think this was a scam so putting the information out in case they are targetting alpaca breeders.

Just checked internet and it definitely looks like a scam as there are lots of messages from people who have had the same call.  My advice is just hang up on them.

The Things You Do For Love

The title will mean nothing until the last photo.  The weather has been absolutely beautiful which means the grass is still growing.  The alpacas are all well but we have had to take a few of the cria away from their mums which means we've had the hearbreaking cries but no doubt they will settle down over the next couple of days.  The mum's aren't bothered as they have been put into new paddocks with lush, fresh grass.

Wilhelmina has taken to wearing more of the hay than she is eating. "Does my bum look big in this?"

This is the latest addition to our farm.  Another female pygmy goat who has finally been named tonight.  Let me introduce Bella.  She seems to be settling in nicely but isn't much bigger than the hybrid hens and seems quite happy sharing food with them.

This is her in a quiet moment.  She has worn out Cherub and Sweetheart who were asleep inside their shed.

It's tiring having a new baby around.  Belle is asleep inside the shed and Cherub and Sweetheart were so tired that they were asleep standing up leaning against the door and jamb for support.

This explains the blog title.  My daughter needed a photo of somebody dressed in South American attire dancing with an alpaca so we had to mock this up and I had just managed to get out of it before two separate couples turned up.  Her friend went from Liverpool to Manchester with a pink feather boa so that she could try to get a woman to wave it out of a steam train window to photograph.  There are over 100 things along these lines that they need for a worldwide scavenger hunt.  Doesn't it give us all hope for the future knowing our students are spending their time so productively?