Ashdale Alpacas

Yes, Les. It has happened to me.

2012-02-12T23:59:00.001Z

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

2012-02-03T01:19:00.000Z

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?

2012-01-24T23:47:00.001Z

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

2011-12-10T23:00:00.001Z

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

2011-12-01T23:56:00.001Z

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

2011-11-29T14:00:00.001Z

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

2011-11-27T23:28:00.001Z

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?

The Yolk's On Me

2011-11-25T23:29:00.001Z

We just seem to be surrounded with so much cuteness at the moment. We have day old hybrid chicks which I can't resist holding and stroking as well as the silkies and pekins. Si is going to be busy building another chicken shed this weekend and more pens so that we can move some of the pullets outside and these chicks can then go in the large brooder.

We have also been getting orders for our eggs but letting the chickens free range is making it difficult to collect them all. There are only a few using the next boxes so we are having to search the barn and under the caravan for the rest. I made a bit of a boo boo the other day and put three eggs into my jacket pocket and then forgot about them, unfortunately my mobile phone was also in there. I came in and lazily threw my jacket over the back of a chair. broke two of the eggs and then had to try to wipe yolk and slimy albumen from around the buttons but luckily it still works even though it still smells a bit eggy.

My Bonny is getting prettier by the day. Ms Humphreys does make beautiful babies. She has the most amazingly expressive eyes. Bonnie doesn't make much of an effort to eat hard feed and just stands back to watch everybody else fight it out for prime position but she does push in as we are putting out fresh hay.

Love is Blue

2011-11-15T22:08:00.001Z

We have been having a lot of fun the past week even though it has been one our busiest times since we set up our farm. We have had a few couples coming to see the alpacas and wanting to learn how we started out and finding it amusing that we actually know all of their names. One of the husbands asked me if I knew the names of all of the chickens. The new chicken business has been really busy and we have had a lot of really nice people turning up to buy from us. Today we had a telephone call from a lady who wanted to bring her daughter to buy a couple of chickens but she was worried that she would be a bit late by the time she collected her from school and drove here. We told her that she would still be made welcome so when they turned up Emily, the daughter, was delighted that she would be able to choose her own chickens. We told her that the ones with the reddest combs were the ones most likely to be laying soonest. She had visited the website and saw that we had blue chickens and wanted to know if the bluest ones would be ready to lay first. They are actually grey but do have a bluish sheen. What started out as a purchase of a couple of hens ended up with a sale of four because she couldn't make up her mind. Never surround an 8 year old girl with animals and expect her to choose quickly. She wanted to know everything she could learn from us about chickens so I think she will look after them really well although her mum did tell her she wasn't allowed to have them in her bedroom after seeing some of the young bantams we are keeping warm in the caravan.

The point of lay chickens just wander around all day but have a habit of trying to nag us into giving them their afternoon corn early. I was late the other day and they trooped up the drive to shame me into going out. A lady telephoned today about chickens and while we were chatting she could hear them all in the background and I then confessed that I was laying straw around the doors to their sheds so that they could dry their feet on the way in. It was only later that I thought that maybe we are spoiling them somewhat.

It is very rare that I can get a shot of any of the younger alpacas on their own so took full advantage of Delilah watching me paddock clean. I got the feeling that she was just waiting for me to clean that area so that she would use it as soon as my back was turned. Two of the wethers (Biffy and Timothy) that are up for sale are in the background.

Flash, Bang, Wallop, What A Picture

2011-11-04T00:11:00.000Z

I thought it was about time I did another blog even though I have decided I am not keen on Google blogger since they altered it earlier in the year. Everytime I log onto it the new posting screen has changed and I can only comment on others' blogs intermittently.

Anyway, since the last blog we have won 7 more rosettes at the GWR Fleece show and we also had a stall selling our knitwear which went really well. We have been carrying on with improving things around here and I even said words to Si that I never thought would come out of my mouth 'What are you going to build next?' He has built a large chicken shed for our hybrid layers and all the new pens for them.

All of the pregnant girls that are up for sale have been given their preventative medications, toe nails cut and body scored so they are all ready for winter. I tried to take some photographs to put on alpacaseller but they had all been rolling in the mud so it looks as though we have a herd of grey alpacas. They are slightly on the heavy side at the moment but it will help to keep them warmer during the colder weather and the weight will gradually come off over winter when they are eating mainly hay.

After being treated they were put onto clean pasture and Ms Humphreys couldn't wait to start eating the fresh lush grass. Her head was down grazing the second she was through the gate.

Next through was Larralluh one of our Elite Australian girls who we are putting up for sale as soon as we can get a picture of her looking clean. She has given us some beautiful female cria and we sold her first born a few months ago.

It took an age to get a snap of Temple as everytime I raised the camera she turned away from me but in the end the attraction of fresh grass got the better of her and I quickly snapped her.

The girls soon gathered together again making the most of the good weather to graze, those of you with really good eyesight will spot some of the pekins in the background sharing the paddock.

We did this years cria last of all and Halo's baby literally charged across the paddock to catch up with his mum. Probably to complain about having his injections.

While all this was going on Heaven spotted the camera and even though she was in another paddock she left her mum to come across to have her photograph taken. She just stood there waiting for me to point it at her, she is such a poser.

The weather has taken a turn for the worse today and we have had trouble keeping the biosecurity mats in place, Si pinned them down with tent pegs so that they stay on the drive. As we have customers arriving to buy chickens and clients to see the alpacas we have to make sure that any vehicles that arrive have their wheels disenfected and then we also have the footmats so that people are free to walk around. The wind has been so strong that the anti-bacterial hand washes have also been bouncing around the place. The chickens haven't seemed to mind the weather and everytime I have been out to do any chores they have all been rushing over thinking that it is time for their teatime treat of corn.

Where were you while we were getting high?

2011-09-24T23:54:00.000+01:00

We have spent the day outside doing construction work which also meant spending hours inhaling creosote. I have to admit to loving the smell of it. I really think that we should have put rubber gloves on as my hands had to be scrubbed so much to get off the brown stain that the skin is now peeling off.

We had a few of the boys castrated in the past couple of weeks. I did warn our vet that I may not be much help as I would probably get queezy if I had to watch. By the time we had got the boys ready in the catch pen I was fine. In fact, we laughed and joked all the way through it and she was almost cutting my hair at the same time I had my head so close to where the action was. Just a quick couple of slices and pop. The boys didn't seem to be bothered by it at all and as soon as they had been 'done' they went straight back to grazing. It was fascinating.

Si stayed up at the head end handing out sympathietic whispers while Tess and I just made jokes about men we had dated and why couldn't we have done the same operation on them. She had done the same to two ponies earlier in the day and I thought that she had drawn the short straw but apparently the female vets all volunteer to do this procedure.

Our hen enclosure is becoming heavily populated and there is a serious possibility that they may become something of an addiction. Even Tilly will sit and watch them for hours. Tilly and I were walking down to the barn the other day and one of the Sebrights had paid the pigs a visit and decided to cross the drive as we approached. Tilly just sat there and watched her walk back to the paddock. She didn't even ask her why the hen crossed the road.

Save All Your Kisses For Me

2011-08-25T23:37:00.000+01:00

We had an exciting day yesterday. I was watching Neema out of the window for any change in her behaviour as she was due to birth the other day even though her stomach looked really small. I could see her back end bulging and it looked as though she was straining, although she didn't attempt to go to the poo pile. She had been straining for about 20 minutes and it was completely unproductive so I telephoned Head Office (Wellground Alpaca Stud) to ask Rob and Les how long I should wait before I phoned the vet. I suddenly realised that the screeching noise I could hear was her and not the pigs as I first thought. They advised I did it straight away and while she was still on her way a nose appeared, and then slightly more of the head. I really wished we lived closer to a vet as the wait seemed interminable with Neema letting out more screams. I had no choice but to delve into the birthing kit get out the lube and the long glove. Head pushed back in and, cupping the toes, I got the feet out. I phoned Les again while I was leaving Neema to do a bit of the work herself, even Les heard her scream as she pushed out the body. It would probably have helped if she had been willing to stand but she just stayed on the ground pushing and screeching.

I had just picked up the phone again to cancel the vet, after checking and drying off the cria, when she turned up and laughingly accused me of spoiling her fun. She does love alpacas and ended up just watching him for a while. We thought Neema might have rejected him after all the trauma but she has turned out to be an absolutely super mum.

A couple of minutes after being born and, no, I hadn't done the paddock cleaning that morning.

Here he is a couple of hours after being born.

While I worked up a sweat 3 generations of top Australian Genetic casually watched. Halo had so much hay in her mouth that she looks as though she has an abscess. Our clients baby boy sprawled next to his mum wondering what all the fuss was about.

As soon as Si gets back from the office he changes out of his suit and gets out with the animals. He loves having females queueing up to greet him with kisses when he gets home, all he gets from me is a list of jobs that need doing.

Chance is always the first in line

Exhibition next with Bonnie waiting her turn in the background

and then Delilah

It would appear that East Devon Planning Dept. are appreciating that alpacas are proving to be a sustainable business and have granted two farms permanent planning permission to build their dream homes on their own land within the past month. People are loving living with these gentle animals. The top quality fleeces are still being sold in premium products despite there being a recession on. We can hardly keep up with demand for our knitwear at the moment which is why it doesn't make it to the shop on our website.

We haven't come up with a name for the new baby yet and are really struggling to come up with something with a music connection.

Chick, Chick, Chick, Chick, Chicken

2011-08-23T23:13:00.000+01:00

Sorry, I know that we should blog more often but it has really been a hectic time. Our clients have had another baby born here, they are going to start with their hands full as both of their new baby boys are really energetic bundles of joy. I still feel like a proud parent whenever we have babies charging round, so much so that I was trying to have a serious conversation on the telephone today but instead gave them a report on what the new cria was doing. Aaah he's chasing a bird now, aaah now he's trying to play with Temple. Not doing much for my credibility as a business woman.

Let's see. What have we been up to over the past couple of weeks? We managed a visit to Rosemary and her men over at Westhill Alpacas. More plans were made over what shades we were aiming for to add to our knitwear collection. Aforementioned knitwear collection was seriously depleted at the last two shows we did and we are now starting to panic about what we are going to have left to sell by Christmas and if the mills can spin and get more yarn back to us in time. We both have lots of ideas about new items to add to our stock.

Si has been deciding which girls can go up for sale but has said that people can come and choose which ones they are interested in and what bloodlines they want in their herd so he has been preparing me for letting some of my girls to leave home. I know it's not as though I'll never see them again, we offer a free mating with Cooper or one of our other stud males and we always make sure that we visit clients to help them with injections and toenail trimming. We also get regular updates when they telephone us for advice; we are available to our clients 24/7 by telephone.

This is one of the only photos I managed to get of the latest addition to our clients' herd. He's never still. I hope they have all their farm preparation done before they get their alpacas as they will spend so much time just watching their babies.

These are some of my new babies. I think this is consolation for having to let some of my alpacas go. I know that is the general idea of raising alpacas but I want to keep them all and then on the other hand I want others to share the happiness and calm they bring to us.

I can cuddle these at the moment and we have had children staying on the campsite. They were a joy to have here and were so interested in the animals. They were brilliant at picking up the chicks and cuddling them. So much better than me, I am missing them and hope they return again to see us.

I have had to take a break from knitting as it is rubbish collection day and as all the recycling has to be washed I was washing a tin when I sliced between my little finger and ring finger. It hurts and I need sympathy. It has stopped me from knitting for the night.

Needles And Pins

2011-08-04T23:32:00.000+01:00

When you look up in the sky at night and think that you are looking at stars, you aren't. What you are actually seeing are sparks from my knitting needles. We did another small show last weekend and despite the really hot weather people were buying scarves and hats and we have also taken quite a few orders to be completed by the end of the month. We have even been taking advantage of modern technology and managed to get electronic payments made to us while we are in a field in the middle of nowhere. Si referred to knitting and crochet as 'playing' the other night and the glare I shot in his direction told him that he was lucky he wasn't wearing the knitting needles.

We have moved Halo and Neema down into the birthing paddock under the window so that we can watch them closely now they are nearing their due date. They are both due on the same day but I doubt that will actually happen.

Last years girls were all lined up so as soon as I pointed the camera in their direction Carrie decided to look behind her which made Penny (at the front) look like a 'pushme pullyou' from Dr Dolittle. We really need to plan a mating for Delilah soon in the hope of a birth next year.

Baby Love

2011-07-22T00:56:00.003+01:00

This time of the year is the best if you are breeding alpacas. Seeing the cria in the paddocks is wonderful, we can while away many an hour just leaning on the fences watching them. It's just a pity that we also have to do routing chores that take us away from them. We have been getting the wood ready for the log burner in winter and making alpaca poo bricks to burn too.

Si has started to prepare the fleeces for the GWR show and getting any that haven't been entered ready to go to the mill. We are getting really low on yarn and the knitwear is still selling despite the warm weather. As it has been dry here today we have taken advantage of it and been cutting the grass again; the rain made it grow so fast that the alpacas couldn't keep it short enough.

I did remember to take the camera out today and grab a few shots of this years cria. They are growing so fast and we only have another couple due but not until next month. We should have done spit offs on all the girls that have been mated recently but we were far too busy so that will have to go on the weekend 'to do' list now.

Clyde is the youngest (and isn't ours) but we are still getting a lot of enjoyment watching him play with Bonnie in the top paddock.

Eleanor Rigby, who was born in January, with Piper just behind. I'm afraid I chopped off Condor's head in this one.

In this one I was trying to get Wilhelmina and Condor but Heaven spotted the camera and came charging over.

Bonnie seemed quite happy to pose today, she normally tries to hide behind her mum when the camera comes out. Maybe having Clyde to play with has given her more confidence.

Let Sleeping Goats Lie

2011-07-18T00:01:00.000+01:00

We had farm visitors yesterday morning and although the parents were keen to see the alpacas their sons were more taken with the goats and pigs. They have gone from just wanting to have alpacas to wanting every animal they can when they set up their enterprise. I think the sons may also have mentioned elephants and giraffes at some point. Probably a bit too ambitious for land of just under 10 acres but they seemed to enjoy helping feed the alpacas and then collecting branches to give to the goats.

They loved seeing Cricket's new baby and there were lots of oohs and aahs but we had to explain that Cricket had already been sold so her son doesn't actually belong to us either. Never mind there were still quite a few other elite pregnant girls to choose from.

After they had left we spent the afternoon catching up with the routine weekend chores such as disinfecting the feeders etc. A quick check of the boundary fences and having a moan about the extraordinary strength of the buttercups or those b****y buttercups as they are now known around these parts. We have too much rain forecast to be able to spray them again this week or even cut the grass, in fact the rain was hitting the windows sidewards this evening.

Today we did the monthly pedicure on the goats and they are now so calm about it that Cherub fell asleep in my arms when I was holding her for Si to do the actual trimming. Even after he had finished I was stuck there on the ground holding her as she seemed so reluctant to move. If only the alpacas behaved as well.

We have had quite a relaxing day, only doing what has had to be done and then snoozing while Si watched the golf through his eyelids again. It must be the only way to watch sport on tv.

Busy Bee

2011-07-13T23:19:00.000+01:00

We have had a brilliant few days. On Friday morning our clients came across to visit their new cria. His fleece is looking amazing but with his genetics we didn't expect anything less. He was moved yesterday out of the birthing paddock so that he has a playmate. As he isn't mine I'm blaming him for leading Bonnie astray; I have spent too much time today just watching the pair of them play. They have been jumping on their paddock mates while they have been trying to sunbathe. I must admit that the females have been the model of patience and not one of them spat at the babies. He has even had his first go at pronking and I have never seen one so young do this before.

The latest beautiful cria standing next to mum Hemiccoyo Cricket of Cambridge, sister Ashdale Delilah and Ashdale Exhibition.

I was able to attend a show at the weekend as this little one was giving us no worries. We managed to sell scarves, hats and gloves even though the weather was really hot. I suppose it pays to be prepared for winter. Once again we were getting so many compliments on our knitwear and even tonight Rosemary at Westhill Alpacas emailed to tell me that she had sold one of our shawls.

On Saturday evening we were just unpacking from the show when we noticed a couple at the gate looking at the alpacas so we invited them in. The husband had been on a bike ride earlier in the week and noticed the animals so had brought his wife with him this time. We showed them around and then because the knitwear was still in the car we showed them some of the items we had had for sale. They have asked if they can come back and buy some items for Christmas. We are always pleased to show people the alpacas and the end products.

After doing two days at a show Monday was spent playing 'catch up' on all the chores we hadn't done over the weekend. We have had the hay delivered straight from the field so we should have enough to get us through the winter and we have also been chopping wood so that we are prepared for the colder nights. We were really tired when we got in tonight so I was looking forward to putting my feet up and watching some TV. Si had the remote control and we ended up watching a programme on BBC4 about statistics, I am so glad I have my knitting to do (or maybe it is some devious plan of his to keep me working).

Walk Away

2011-07-09T00:45:00.001+01:00

Well you turn your back for a few days and Google decided to change the whole blog format. It has taken a bit of getting used to but we seem to have got the hang of it now.

We had an exciting day yesterday. We have been watching Cricket closely waiting for her to give birth and yesterday I mentioned that she seemed a bit fidgety and was making unproductive visits to the poo pile. At about 11.15am Si was going down to the barn when he noticed a head and two legs hanging out so obviously the first thing we had to do was grab the camera and the phone to inform Cricket's new owners. Poor Cricket had all the females born last year examining her closely, probably hoping they never have to give birth.

Cricket did what she normally does when giving birth and promptly sat down. She makes her cria walk out.

Carrie had got bored by the whole thing and turned away while Delilah greeted her new brother. Penny made sure she had a front row seat.

It didn't take long for him to be up on his feet. Everything works fine and today his new owners came over to check their latest addition. I must admit he has excellent bloodlines from both his sire and dam and when we checked him over again today we were amazed at the crimp in his fleece.

We will give him another day to bond properly with his mum and then bring Bonnie back down with Ms Humphreys so he has another baby to play with.

You Say Goodbye and I Say Halo

2011-07-02T00:20:00.004+01:00

We had a return visit from a couple who must remain anonymous for now. They will be referred to throughout as TW (the wife) and TH (the husband). They have spent many hours travelling the motorways looking at alpacas to source the best bloodlines the UK has to offer so that when they start breeding themselves they are producing top quality animals from the very first cria. They had previously seen our animals in full fleece but this time they saw them after they had been sheared so that they could check out the conformation properly. They purchased two of our pregnant girls from us, Halo, who was our first cria born here from EP Cambridge Larralluh and Hemiccoyo Cricket of Cambridge who has produced some beautiful progeny.

Halo in the foreground.

Cricket is about to give birth any day now so we all had a feel of her abdomen and could feel the limbs moving. It's always exciting waiting for your first baby but they're having to do it by proxy. We are keeping the camera close by so we can email them pictures as soon as the cria is born. We spent some time going through fleece samples and looking at rosettes our animals have won for their fleeces.

While we were examining the alpacas that they were interested in we had also brought Ms Humphreys into the chase. Si and TH had opened the gate to let them back in to the paddock while TW and I were chatting about fleeces, yarn and birthing. All the animals had gone back but Si was still stood with the gate open so I asked him what was up and he pointed at the alpaca I was still holding, I hadn't realised that the Humph had come between TW and myself and I automatically started stroking her and scratching her neck which she loves and she flatly refused to go back in the paddock. Si patted her on the rump to try to encourage her to walk in and she refused to move. Si tried to coax her, push her. In the end she just went to the ground and Si had to push her in like a wheelbarrow. So much for us trying to say how easy alpacas are to handle.

Sorry about the secret squirrel post but we will announce the purchasers once they have sourced the rset of their elite herd.

Cut Above The Rest

2011-06-28T00:27:00.001+01:00

It has been such a busy time, mainly cutting grass as it is growing at a pretty alarming rate after all the rain we have had recently. We are still cursing the buttercups as they seem to duck under the blades of the mower and then stand to attention again once we have driven over them so the battle continues with them winning at the moment. We have been making the most of the weather and staying outside as late as possible so that when Si gets to sit down and watch sport on tv he watches it all through his eyelids. It's quite a trick.

I managed to get a pic of Wilhelmina with her mum, Sanctimonious before they went to the barn for shearing and preventative medication. Immediately afterwards they were moved on to clean fresh pasture.

I think Penny looks gorgeous with her topknot trimmed neatly. She looks so small now without her fleece and it just seems wrong that she should be mated later in the summer, she looks such a baby.

Cricket is in the birthing paddock looking ready to pop. She's a lot more comfortable without her fleece, it is so dense that she must have been sweltering but doesn't really like the paddling pool. To keep her cool we have to soak the ground and she kushes in the damp grass.

Carl and Sam from Westhill Alpacas came across yesterday to finish shearing so that means that all the animals are looking smaller, cooler and more relaxed. While they were here Rosemary rang to say that they had had their first birth of the year and it was a girl so they are off to a good start.

Rain, Rain Go Away

2011-06-18T14:41:00.002+01:00

It's not often that people get more than they ask for but in the case of the rain lately that is exactly what we are getting, We've had enough now and it can go away for a few days. Now that most of the girls have been sheared Si expects them to stay in the barn to keep warm and dry; they go in of a night but he stands next to the window when it is pouring down shouting at the alpacas to get in the barn. They mustn't be able to hear him because they just kush where they are.

Tilly enoying a break in the weather.She comes around paddock cleaning and just lays down to supervise while enjoying the attention from her adoring public. The girls are so gentle with her and Cherrybomb always comes over for a kiss.

Piper and Heaven where enjoying a play when we got to their paddock until Heaven spotted the camera and had to stop and pose leaving poor Piper with his head wrapped around her neck

I'm actually typing this whilst at a show with Rosemary and Carl from Westhill Alpascas. We have been rained on again and we are fighting with the wind to keep hold of all the alpaca products but it is still a fun day with loads of interest in the knitwear.

I don't like cricket, oh no, I love it

2011-06-12T22:05:00.000+01:00

We're full of anticipation for the result of the mating between Hemiccoyo Cricket of Cambridge and our own homebred stud male Ashdale Cooper. The resulting cria should be something pretty spectacular. Cricket was bred to Cooper's sire two years ago and gave us a beautiful female. Cooper's sire is a Supreme Champion and has also produced another Supreme Champion. Cricket's fleece won a first last year and her bloodline includes some of the best genetics Australia has to offer.

A heavily pregnant Hemiccoyo Cricket of Cambridge looking thoroughly fed up with playing the waiting game

Ashdale Cooper looking as only an expectant father can, wondering why everybody is making a fuss of Cricket when he had something to do with the imminent arrival.

Super Shearers (Carl and Sam from Westhill Alpacas) arrived bright and early yesterday morning and set to cooling down the Elite Australian girls by taking off their thick coats. I was working in the house when Si arrived with two bags of fleece looking very excited and saying 'Guess who this is off?' as soon as he walked through the door. As there was so much I suggested one of the larger girls. He delighted in telling me I was wrong (delighted because it is not often I am) and told me it had come off Ashdale Delilah this was the cria produced from Cricket and EP Cambridge Samson who resides at Wellground Alpaca Stud in Wiltshire. As if that excitement wasn't enough for him he then pulled out of his pocket another surprise for me. 'Look at this' I admired the piece of fleece he then thrust at me and it was pretty special. When I pointed this out to him he was even more pleased 'That is a piece of the seconds, you should see the quality of the blanket and the amount'. Poor Cricket and Cooper. They have a lot to live up to this year.

Let Me Put You In The Picture

2011-06-07T22:32:00.000+01:00

To try and get some shots of the other cria without Heaven is proving almost impossible. I sneaked up while she was looking the other way to get a shot of Eleanor.

She has seemed to sense that the camera was ready even though the other cria had come across for their evening run around.

She is now trying to push Piper out of the way to get ready for her close-up.

Now she has got herself a better position.

I waited until Piper had gone close to his mum to have another attempt but here Heaven is again.

And here is a picture of Wilhelmina and Condor. Who is that in the front? I give up, here are a lot of pictures of Heaven with a few other cria in the background.

We'll Meet Again

2011-06-05T23:45:00.000+01:00

Just when we wanted the alpacas to look their best we had rain so they looked slightly soggy this morning but luckily the weather dried up and the breeze soon fluffed them all up again.

We were all ready for our visitors with the grass cut, alpacas on their best behaviour and the pygmy goats crying out for attention. We were wondering if they were going to arrive and then the telephone rang. They were lost (well, we are tucked away a bit) so Si drove down to the main road so that they could follow him back.

As they had never kept livestock before they were absolutely fascinated with our story and how our farm was just an empty field a few years ago. They were really interested in everything alpaca so the knitwear and yarn had to come out and they loved just how soft it was. After tea we went out to meet the animals and we demonstrated exactly what to look for in a fleece. It was a bit nippy so it was back in for more tea and cakes while we discussed the routine medications which caused a lot of laughter as we kept mentioning drenches, and although alpaca owners know what that means, if you haven't kept livestock before it does seem perfectly logical to think that you poured medications all over each alpaca. It did explain the funny looks we kept getting as we were talking about them.

They also fell in love with Bonnie, Ms Humphreys cria from this year, they were enamoured with how like Bambi she looks.

They did telephone tonight asking if they can return for a much longer visit next month. It would appear that alpacas are still capturing hearts and making people want them for themselves.

One Day Like This

2011-06-04T23:12:00.000+01:00

Drinking in the morning sun

Blinking in the morning sun

It's been another scorcher here today but we have had a breeze with it to help cool us down. We have been dashing round trying to get all the chores done as we have visitors tomorrow from over the border, not the Devon/Somerset one but the England/Scotland one. A couple are arriving to look at our alpacas as they are thinking of starting their own breeding programme and like the look of our mix of Elite Australian Bloodlines. We have a really good selection now so look forward to showing them off. On top of the usual chores we have also been trying to keep the girls cool.

Cricket, one of our Elite Australian imports, has learned that if she needs anything she only has to come to the French windows and stare in at us, this usually means she want the footbath or paddling pool refilling. She isn't the prettiest of girls but has produced some amazing cria for us and managed to win a 1st at the only fleece show we entered her in.

For some reason they all wanted this paddling pool today and the footbaths and other pools were left with beautiful clear, clean water in. Juno stood like this for ages and spat at any of the other girls that tried to have a turn.

In one of the other paddocks Chicago sat splashing and having a great time, the poor babies kept getting close but every time she splashed they turned and ran away.

Tilly was exhausted after all the work she has done, disinfecting the feeders and water holders, cutting grass, paddock cleaning and filling up the paddling pools. She went in the long grass next to the barn and lay flat on her back and went to sleep leaving us to finish the work.

I also had a lovely surprise email today to prevent me suffering withdrawal symptoms as I had been missing one of my favourite males. Thank you so much.

She Needs Me

2011-06-02T00:37:00.000+01:00

It's been a nice relaxing day today, just a bit of paddock cleaning and then gardening. We did have a walk around to enjoy the alpacas and managed to catch Heaven with the camera stealing milk off Chicago. Chicago hasn't produced a cria for 18 months so we have no idea how she is producing milk.

I managed to get a picture of the latest cria without Heaven standing in front of everybody for a change, it meant waiting until she needed to go to the poo patch.

Once she realised the camera was out she pushed her way to the front again as if to say it's really me she wants.

So here is Heaven with Eleanor behind her, Piper and Condor to the side with Wilhelmina behind.

Tomorrow we have pedicures for the goats on the agenda with more grass cutting. The pigs are enjoying having the cuttings thrown into their paddock, they are spending the days lying on a deep cushion of it sunbathing.

It's Not A Bad Life

2011-06-01T00:17:00.001+01:00

We moved some of the pregnant girls into the paddock under the window yesterday so that we can watch them closely. Cricket is the first due to birth and even though she isn't due until 2nd July she is having difficulty kushing as she is so big, we decided best be safe than sorry so they were brought down earlier than planned. It is fantastic having them closer again, our first cup of coffee of the day is now drunk standing next to the patio doors just enjoying watching them.

Cricket in the foreground with Neema grazing behind her. Neema isn't due until August.

This is a great view to wake up to every morning.

I have to admit that we have spent the best part of the day just walking round admiring the animals, we did a few spit-offs and Aurora was mated with Lear, very noisy it was too, plenty of orgling from Lear with Aurora looking thoroughly bored with the proceedings. We were leaning on the fence checking out last years cria when they came over looking at us accusingly, they must have thought we had forgotten the feed bucket but they had been fed earlier in the day.

Build Me Up Buttercup

2011-05-29T23:55:00.004+01:00

The day started off really dull and we thought that we were going to get some rain but then the sun came out and the temperatures soared. Si has spent more time riding around on the mower but it appears that the buttercups are getting the better of him and are now flowering just above ground level. He won't be beaten and has lowered the mowing deck so that it is now cutting the grass so short that the soil is also being scraped.

Piper and Condor have become really good paddock mates now and spend most of their time together, they also seem to have learnt to stand and pose when approached with the camera. Heaven still thinks that she is the leader of the pack and has taken to feeding off whichever adult female is nearest, even the ones who haven't given birth yet. It is probably time to stop paying her so much attention. Wilhelmina is beautiful and as much as I love the dark alpacas they are really difficult to photograph well, they just look like a sillhouette in all the snaps I take.

Timothy is now coming out of his shell and instead of moving away from us is quite happy to stand and pose.

I'm glad shearing time is almost with us as the temperatures are forecast to soar in the next few days and the heavily pregnant girls are starting to look really uncomfortable. They have spent most of the afternoon asleep in the shade of the trees, if I hadn't had the paddock to clean I might have been tempted to join them.

Picture Of You

2011-05-28T01:37:00.000+01:00

Cherub and Sweetheart, the pygmy goats, have got into the habit of nagging for their takeaway as soon as they see one of us. This means walking round with a small blade in the back pocket of our jeans all the time in preparation for cutting down a branch or two for them to nibble on. It doesn't take long for them to strip it bare. It's like having two toddlers nagging for sweets in the supermarket.

We don't seem to have taken any photos of My Bonnie for quite a while but she hasn't been neglected. She has been in the top paddock with the pregnant Australian girls and last years cria. She gets some attention every day as she is so cute looking. It is difficult to get a picture of her on her own as all of the alpacas in with her are so used to seeing the camera that they crowd around the gate as soon as they see it being raised ready to snap.

The young boys have started to follow their example and gather round for attention but it would appear that Cooper has decided to become camera shy and is hiding his head behind Junior. Lear was a bit late in coming over so can just be seen approaching from the rear. Timothy has decided which is his best side and is facing down towards empty paddocks.

Cricket has been sitting awkwardly today and has a due date of 2nd July but looks as though she could be early as she is so big. She is going to be brought down to the birthing paddock tomorrow after Si has topped it again, she will be joined by another four girls who are due a month later. This is more for our peace of mind than anything else, I like to have them right under the window so that they can be watched constantly and closer to the barn if they give birth while it is raining.

Taxman

2011-05-27T00:51:00.000+01:00

Today we have had much needed rain with high winds added for good measure so all the jobs that were planned for outside went by the board. We had intended to do some strimming and more spraying of the infernal buttercups in paddocks that won't be needed for a few months but hopefully it will be dry enough to catch up with these chores over the bank holiday weekend.

For some reason all the alpacas have been avoiding the field shelters and just hunkering down and getting wet, maybe they are grateful to be a bit cooler as they are still in full fleece. It has been so cool that we lit the fire today and have actually done the tax return that isn't due in until the end of January 2012. We have also gone through some of the photographs that were on the computer and deleted some, it's amazing just how many you take with a digital camera and aren't as selective as we used to be when using film.

Stupid Girl

2011-05-25T00:53:00.000+01:00

I have been having a really blonde day today. I remembered the vet bill from last month hadn't been paid with all that had been happening and decided to pay over the phone as I also wanted to order some Lambivac. Once I got through I found out that there was nothing to pay and we were also in credit; I had already paid the bill twice and was trying to pay for a third time. I had a doctors appointment due on Thursday morning, I knew it was really early but couldn't remember the exact time so telephoned them to check and found out I should have been there this morning so had missed it. So much for thinking I was coping ok with Dad's death, it would appear not.

All the paddocks that Si had topped have already got a good covering of bright yellow buttercups in them so he is going to have to go over them all again. We haven't really done anything constructive today but seemed to be busy all the same. The pigs have been given all the cut grass and they have spent most of the day sunbathing on it. The goats have had their usual mix of takeaway from the hedge, we are clearing a lot of debris this way and also adding to the firewood pile for next winter.

We are really enjoying have early cria for the first time this year. Heaven seems the most mischevious of them all but it is fun watching them and seeing their different personalities develop. Piper is a lot more lively now and is often up on just his hind legs.

Eleanor seems to know that when the camera comes out she has to stand and pose, Heaven is never far away from her as it was just the two of them for a while. Piper is behind the two girls looking at something in the distance with Condor just behind Eleanor, next to his mum.

Dance With My Father Again

2011-05-23T13:18:00.000+01:00

My last blog was actually written in the car heading back to Liverpool for my Dad's last party. I had stayed up late on Thursday night not wanting the next day to arrive, pretty much the reverse of a child being willing to go to bed early on Christmas Eve. We had a really early start but all the animals had to be taken care of before we left.

It really was all about Dad. The Celibrant and Humanist, Anthony Roberts-Moore took the service and he had spent hours finding out all he could about Dad, he had decided that he was a person he would have liked and proved this by getting emotional himself. He had us all laughing as well as crying and I was so proud that there was standing room only and the doors had to be left open so that people could stand outside and still hear. There were references to people that Dad had loved and that loved him. Even 'Sue's Specials' got a mention. This is a lady who used to cook an extra meal and send her husband to deliver them in his Jag. I'm still not convinced that Dad was in the coffin with everything else that was put in there with him. We are hedging our bets a bit here as it was full of his favourite things and presents from some of his grandchildren. Dad used to go on holiday every year with friends and they became knows as 'The Benidorm Boys', one of their routines was to see who could buy the worst shirt while they were away and have a competition. They carried the coffin in and had asked if they could have their last bad shirt day, we thought Dad would have loved that so obviously said 'Yes'. The looks the cortege got as we headed to the crem was hilarious.

Anthony recited a poem by Joyce Grenfall which really pleased me. My sister hadn't known about the connection with this but we were listening to her records before she was born and I was given Joyce's middle name as Dad was such a fan. The only thing that Anthony had difficulty with was the word 'Bainbridgisms', this is always used in reference to Dad's quips and jokes.

Anthony finished the service with this poem, we had never heard it before but apparently it is a classic.

Our parents cast long shadows over our lives. When we grow up we imagine that we can walk into the sun, free of them. We don't realize until it's too late that we have no choice in the matter; they're always ahead of us.

We carry them within us all our lives, in the shape of our face, the way we walk, the sound of our voice, our skin, our hair, our hands, our heart. We try all our lives to separate ourselves from them and only when they are dead do we find we are indivisible.

We grow to expect that our parents, like the weather, will always be with us. Then they go, leaving a mark like a handprint on glass or a wet kiss on a rainy day, and with their death we are no longer children.

As we came out after the service there was a fly-past and everybody commented on it. It really hadn't been arranged by any of us but it was perfect timing and had us all laughing again. Everybody said what a brilliant service it had been with most people saying it was the best funeral they had ever been to. The wake/party afterwards was brilliant with an emotional speech from my Uncle Don (Dad's brother)which set us off again and then the 'Bainbridgisms' were passed around and we were all laughing again. I was given a signed book of poetry from the author who knew Dad.

The only problem my sister and I now have is accepting that Dad isn't with us any more because I went to phone him on Saturday to tell him what a great day we had had. He would have loved it.

Day In, Day Out

2011-05-20T10:32:00.000+01:00

Blog has been missing for a few days as I had lost a connecting flex. House has been turned upside down in the hunt for it, even the dog's basket was searched for the elusive item but it was in my handbag. No idea how it got there as I hardly ever use it but I may have put it in on the way for my day out.

Si had spent the morning topping some of the paddocks and they look a lot neater now but there is still the odd buttercup that sprang back up. I was a bit overexcited as we were off to visit Westhill Alpacas for the first time in a long time. They had alpacas I hadn't met and their ewes had been having a busy time producing. Si did get a bit intrigued when Sam said that he could meet Jordan but his interest waned slightly when he real realised it was a lamb.

The view from the top of Westhill Alpacas showing some of their great girls in the foreground

Jordan, who is only a few weeks old but seems twice the size of the lambs who were born at the same time. He is obviously used to getting a lot of cuddles as he was really well behaved while we made a fuss of him.

Lily is really grown up now and pregnant but is still as pretty as ever and we spent some time going through the fleeces. There is some pretty impressive crimp in their herd now and a beautiful blue black potential stud with Centurian in his bloodline. I can't wait to see what he produces when he has started to work which will hopefully be later this year.

Rosemary had two wonderful cakes which we worked our way through while we were making more plans for our knitwear and then she brought out some of the fleeces that Carl had already sheared this year. There was a really amazing dark fawn/brown one with really tight crimp that we were all really impressed with but I can't remember which of her boys it came from.

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

2011-05-16T00:16:00.000+01:00

We've had a bit of a lazy day today.

Paddocks were cleaned first thing this morning and then feeders and water holders disinfected. We even managed to sit down for an hour with the newspapers. The good weather held and Si tried to get the mower started, no luck, he tried jump starting it from the car but it kept cutting out. A quick telephone call to Carl at Westhill Alpacas for advice but he was out shearing. While Si was waiting for him to get back he decided to have another go at fixing it and it started quite easily so that was him set for the afternoon. I-Pod on full blast he just sat singing along chopping the buttercups and docks down. I did the takeaways for the goats and pigs; I make sure I give them a good selection of branches, Sweetheart seems to prefer Willow while Cherub tends to dive into the Hawthorne first and then work her way through the rest slowly. Bacardi and Coke (Kune Kune pigs) jump straight into their pile of branches chomping away at anything that is nearest and then just crush the twigs down to make a mattress.

That sounds like quite a lot but as quite a bit of the time we were watching the new babies running around it felt like we were taking it easy. I suppose that means we must enjoy what we do.

I Just Can't Believe All The Things People Say

2011-05-14T22:14:00.000+01:00

Firstly, I have to thank everybody who has telephoned after the BAS meeting last Saturday. Si had put his name forward to be on the committee believing that the only way to get things changed is to do it from the inside. We couldn’t understand why there were so many votes against him until somebody who we had never met telephoned to tell us that there was a particularly vindictive member, and fellow nominee, who had been lobbying against him all day and telling people that he wanted to get all alpaca shows stopped. Although we believe this would be the ideal situation until the TB situation is completely under control, after all this worked with the Golden Guernsey Goat Society, or we have a reliable test for alpacas, what he had actually asked at a previous meeting was that he thought that it should be possible for members to be informed as to what bio-security arrangements were in place for each show, so that breeders could make an informed choice about whether to attend or not.

The alpaca shows are organized by people who have differing ideas as to the dangers of zoonotic diseases so some of the BAS Guidelines are adhered to or ignored according to the individual opinions of the organizers. I think that it would be in our favour to be more inclusive, following the example of the US and Australia where they share information, whereas in the UK breeders are more reluctant to help one another. A perfect example of this is the BAS website where there is a forum to share and ask for advice, it hasn’t been used for three months. People can use it to ask specific questions regarding the welfare of their herd and the questions go unanswered for years, if the committee really cared about alpacas couldn’t they check on a regular basis and offer advice? Does every breeder in this country think they know everything there is to know about alpacas? If so, it is a very arrogant attitude and will be to the detriment of the industry as a whole. Even our vet doesn’t presume that he knows everything and will often telephone drug companies and VLA to ask which medications they would recommend for alpacas, as there are no licensed medicines available.

Anyway, it would seem that this has gone in our favour in ways we didn’t envisage. We have even had a telephone call from a breeder on mainland Europe who had heard about what had happened at the meeting and they supported us and the fact that we haven’t shown our animals at an alpaca halter show for the past few years so as not to risk them catching anything. We have animals that we would have loved to have shown but we care about them so won’t risk them. One of our stud boys, Ashdale Cooper, is the son of a Supreme Champion and the brother of Supreme Champions and we would have loved to have taken him to a show or two. This breeder has also said that he would recommend us to people where they live as being biosecurity aware and previously they wouldn’t have considered buying from the UK.

Another attendee at the meeting only has a few alpacas and had recommended this offending nominee to a friend who wanted to start breeding them but has now told them to go elsewhere and has recommended us.
We know that it is unrealistic for us to have a completely ‘closed herd’ yet as we wish to mix bloodlines to improve the quality of our fibre so there are a few breeders that we would trust completely to bring their stud males onto our farm, albeit into a pen away from the main herd for their security as well as our own. We are always asked to dip and scrub our boots in disinfectant before we enter their premises and not once have we felt insulted.

We work closely with several breeders we trust, and have purchased alpacas from, and regularly use the services of, Wellground Alpaca Stud in Wiltshire. They are completely bio-security aware and have not attended any alpaca halter shows for two years either and we have some stunning progeny from Wellground’s stud boys. We love the fact that we can feel completely safe using them and they are always on the end of a telephone for any questions we have but they also share any new information via their blog to help new alpaca owners.

Pretty Baby

2011-05-13T23:00:00.000+01:00

Stars live in the evening

But the very young need the sun, uh-huh
Pretty baby, you look so heavenly

This should have been yesterdays blog but Google had a bit of a blip that lasted over 24 hours.

I think I now have one of the prettiest paddocks in the whole, wide world. Out of the six girls that were due to birth during the spring we have had four female and two male cria. Five are together in the one paddock and it is so joyful to watch them running round during the day. Eleanor was the firstborn and she then had a long wait for her playmate. Once Heaven came along they bonded straight away and they are together most of the day even though they have welcomed the new babies into their games.

Finally on day 387 of her pregnancy Hope gave up and pushed out this beautiful male cria. It involved a call to the vet as for over half an hour there was just a little twitching nose showing and we thought that the cria may be huge so I didn't feel confident about getting him out. Laura and Si were going to hold Hope while I 'went in' but it took Laura so long to get her shoes on that the feet then slid out. Si cancelled the vet once we were sure that the shoulders were out ok and soon after we had a lively male cria on the ground.

We were going to put a coat on him as it was a bit cool but as we were drying him the sun came out so we left him bare so that he could dry faster. It didn't take him long to get up and find the milk bar.

Wilhelmina sitting regally amongst the buttercups which I hope get cut down tomorrow. She wants to play when the rest of the cria have settled down for the night.

Heaven is just off to see if Condor wants to play. I failed completely in getting a shot of Condor on his own as he was too fast

Eleanor was obviously feeling left out so stood and posed for a snap on her way back from being weighed.

Eleanor had been giving Piper kisses but Hope decided that she would break it up. You can just see her behind them trying to push her nose in.

This morning was fantastic. For the first time in months I was able to pull the quilt over my head when I woke up instead of jumping out of bed to check the girls. I now have about five weeks before I'm on cria watch again so it is just like being on holiday.

Wilhelmina, Wilhelmina, She's The Cutest Little Girl ............................

2011-05-11T23:29:00.000+01:00

Great Day. Fewer Tears, lots of laughter.

I got straight out of bed when I woke to come through and check the overdue girls and saw that Condor was trying to feed from Sanctimonious. Wrong, even though it was only just after 5am she had given birth and the new cria was up and attempting to feed, you know, the usual thing of aiming for the right area and then going right under the mother and coming out the other side. By 6am we were back inside having wiped the cria clean, she had fed, pooed and weed so we knew that everything was in working order so it was time for us to have coffee.

The computer went on and I announced her arrival to the rest of the world via Twitter and Facebook because we had been chatting on there about the length of these pregnancies. People were still watching Tuesday night TV programmes while we were practically propping our eyelids open with matchsticks, it was so early. The internet has certainly made the world smaller.

She has been welcomed by the other cria and they have all been having fun showing off to the new arrival. Wilhelmina has been doing her best to keep up with the chasing games and we have spent most of the day around the paddocks, only coming in when it was going dark. Hope has spent the day sitting round looking really fed up and I really hoped that she would produce her cria later in the day. Maybe tomorrow. How many more times do I have to say that?

My sister and I chose the name on the phone today while we were talking through some of the official stuff that has to be done. Dad was called William.

Once Hope has had her cria we have a few weeks break before we are on cria watch again so I will make the most of it by getting out to the shops and maybe even the odd lunch out a la Les from Wellground.

It has been lovely watching the Elite girls in their new paddock today. They have obviously been delighted to get their cria back from last year and they are all back in their family groups. We have decided to try the two day thing, as suggested by Rosemary of Westhill Alpacas , so Cooper was mated to Chance again tonight, the big problem we had was that Carrie didn't want to be separated from her mum again and Temple and Cherrybomb, Chances daughters from previous years, wouldn't leave Carrie alone either, so they all had to be allowed in the chase next to where the action was taking place.

Mr Loverman

2011-05-11T00:14:00.000+01:00

Planning a full days work didn't prompt the overdue girls to give birth. Day 385 over and they still haven't delivered. We are exhausted with these really early starts, we don't even have to use an alarm as our bodies seem to wake us at first light during birthing season. Si did tell me to go back to bed when we had done the first checks but if the girls need any intervention my hands are smaller and I don't want to let them down if they need me.

Ashdale Cooper son of EP Cambridge Samson is looking pretty pleased with himself today. He's been employed doing spit offs and it would appear that all the girls he mated are pregnant bar Laurel Lady's Chance so he had to spend some time entertaining her today. Chance seemed pretty nonplussed and just carried on grazing.

While Si was trying to move Cooper from one girl to another he received a hard kick on his leg and has been in pain with it all night. I suppose he is due a lot more sympathy than he has been getting as his back and arms were already aching from putting the top wires around the perimeter this morning.

Condor has been exploring every nook and cranny of his paddock again today when he hasn't been playing with the girls.

Last years cria have been put into a new paddock back with their mothers today. They were all delighted to see each other again and Ashdale Exhibition ran straight over to her mum Cambridge Larralluh, an Elite Australian Import, Larra soon put her in her place but she had also been the most aggressive in her spit off with Cooper. The girls didn't know where to start grazing first and they were all jumping, running and pronking with joy.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day, so maybe 386 will be our lucky number.

It's Been A Long, Long, Long Time

2011-05-09T23:56:00.000+01:00

Laura and I have spent most of the day just watching and enjoying the new babies. I know that birthing time is stressful until they are on the ground safely but once here it's always worth the wait.

Heaven and Eleanor have really been making the most of having a new playmate and have hardly let him sleep, everytime he goes back to his mum for a feed they follow him until he is willing to run around with them again.

Sanctimonious and Hope are now at the end of day 384 of their pregnancies and are obviously reluctant to be photographed so heavily overweight.

If you have alpacas yourself you will know how stubborn they can be so we have made a long list of chores to be done tomorrow, at least one of them is sure to give birth to put paid to our workplan.

Laura did the afternoon takeaway for the goats and couldn't believe how much they go through. They are so eager to get their pile of branches rich with juicy hawthorne leaves that they almost climb the fence to get to them.

Welcome to My World

2011-05-08T23:49:00.001+01:00

We had a busy day planned as DD was travelling down from Liverpool. This is always an adventure as it usually involves quite a few train changes with at least one missed connection but there was an added bonus today with a two and a half hour bus ride slotted into the middle as the trains were cancelled for routine construction work. Thank goodness for mobile phones.

While Si and I were otherwise engaged Eleanor noticed that the feeders were being neglected by the other girls but had camelibra left in. This is the first time we have noticed her eating hard feed.

This is what was keeping us occupied. Kylie finally decided to give birth today, she was so chilled about it she stayed sitting down. I told Si to get the feed bucket to get her to stand up to make things easier. I know my girls and giving birth isn't going to stop them having their breakfast. She stood up walked over to the feeders, had something to eat and then went back to her chosen position and sat down again. The poor cria practically walked out.

He has been lively from the word 'Go'. As soon as Si had rubbed him dry he got into a kush and Heaven and Eleanor came over and introduced themselves. We have named him Condor as he is a dark brown colour. Whenever he moved Heaven and Eleanor jumped back with fright. Really funny to watch and kept us amused for quite a while.

Here he is drying out and bonding with mum, Kylie

It looks as though Eleanor is asking him if he wants to play this evening. It didn't take him long to join in the evening race with the two girls.

I must thank everybody for their kind emails, comments, messages and cards. It's amazing how much they help. My sister has been fantastic, arranging everything and consulting me over the phone, we have laughed a lot too but we both have sore faces where the salt in our tears have burnt our skin. Obviously with still having two overdue girls on 383 days now we can't leave the farm and make the journey to Liverpool, we are seriously doubting the mating dates now. Important arrangements have had to be delayed making things more upsetting and believe me, it is taking so much restraint not to name and shame. Dad's final party is not for another two weeks (I can't really say the usual word) so we should definitely have the other two cria on the ground by then.

Thank Heavens For Little Girls

2011-05-06T14:53:00.002+01:00

This is the blog I never wanted to write. I have cleaned windows, even done the VAT and accounts, emptied cupboards and tidied them even though they were only done last week.

The cria above have been my saviour over the past couple of days, I can't name them as I can hardly see the photographs through a veil of tears. On Tuesday night about 11pm my telephone rang and it was the news that I wasn't ready for. My Dad had died that day. There, it's in black and white now so it must be true. The title is because he used to sing it to my sister and I when we were small.

He really was an extraordinary man. He brought up 3 children single-handed and this was in the early 70's when it was really unusual, at the same time as working full time. He loved music of all kinds and taught us an appreciation of it. Even just a few years ago my sister and I would go to lunchtime jazz sessions with him and still have happy memories of attending classical concerts and also taking him to the theatre to see 'The Rat Pack'. He was probably over-protective of us and we weren't even allowed to watch Coronation Street as he considered it too racy for children. What a different place the world is now? After a full days work he would take us for walks after dinner to teach us about nature. As we got older we weren't allowed to show any cleavage and if we wore a low cut top he always asked us if there was a scarf that went with our outfit, we teased him about it for years. It feels wrong to have spent so much of the past few days laughing but most of our memories are of him being daft to make us laugh. He must have had the patience of a saint as bedtimes used to take ages. After he had put us to bed and turned off the lights he would say goodnight and we would repeat it back it then turned into a routine where he would shout any silly thing and we would repeat it back to him. We only knew it had ended when he said 'Tiddly tiddly pomp pomps, now go to sleep'. Years later it amused him when he found me doing the same thing with my children.

He had been trying to prepare us and true to form he had looked after us to the end, he even sent my brother the local paper every week even though he left Liverpool 30 years ago. Unfortunately, we didn't listen as we didn't want to acknowledge that he would ever leave us. Even though he wasn't really ill he went to the bank last week to put his affairs in order and in amongst his official papers were sheets of paper with jokes written on. He had even told us what music he wanted played at his funeral and I have only remembered one piece and even that made me laugh. He wants Beethoven's Pastoral played. We have chosen either the 1st or 5th movement as I can remember one rainy day when we were playing the record he conducted me with a chopstick while I had to mime playing the instruments.

I have just had a long break from this. My baby cousin (he is actually now a grown man with children of his own) phoned and we chatted for two hours about childhood memories. It seemed right that most of it was spent laughing at what a mad family we come from. We can even remember our fathers breaking a glass in the bath to make sound effects for a goon type sketch they were enacting. The both used to do Harry Worth impressions outside a shop in a main thoroughfare were we were raised. They didn't care who was watching as long as it made their children laugh. He was the same with his eight grandchildren, so much so that even recently in their teens and 20's they would still spend time chatting with him, and playing pool.

My Dad used to laugh about the idea of Facebook and there were such lovely messages on there about him the other day from people of all ages and my first thought was that I would phone him to tell him but I can't. He won't know about the flowers I'm growing this year. He'll never meet any great-grandchildren he may have.

Tiddly tiddly pomp pomps Daddy. I'm sorry, I'm not ready to let you go even though I know I was lucky to have you this long. I'll never be able to trust anybody like I could trust you. I love you, night night xxx

Singing In The Rain

2011-05-02T23:27:00.001+01:00

We've had a lot of the rain over the last few days but with the high temperatures hanging on we've practically been watching the grass grow.

Heaven really is heavenly, we've been having a great time enjoying her charging around the paddock with Eleanor when her mum allows her to. This evening we were just standing at the french windows staring out at them, it more than makes up for the scare she gave us the day she was born. It has just made her extra special. I'm really supposed to be knitting in my spare time, the last blend of yarn we had spun was a mixture of the best of ours and Westhill Alpacas fleeces (you can visit their website by clicking on the name), it is a beautiful soft beige shade. We have some shows coming up in the near future and as we sold so much stock at the last show we did we are all working hard to replenish our knitwear. Oh well, there's always tomorrow, maybe Heaven will spend some time sleeping to make up for all the activity today.

It's Raining, It's Pouring ........................

2011-05-01T01:17:00.002+01:00

and the old man wasn't snoring. He was doing some electrical work on the horse trailer in the barn. Well we finally got the much hoped for rain and everything looks much brighter except for the alpacas. I am sure that when we wake tomorrow morning the grass seed we scattered will be beautiful verdant blades at least a foot tall.

This was the best photo I could get of Aurora and Heaven. They have bonded so well that everytime we go near Aurora leads her new baby away. I'm not complaining in the least, it is lovely to see after the really dodgy start. She does let Heaven play with Eleanor, this is the much needed playmate that Eleanor has been looking for which means she now lets the heavily overdue girls rest.

Delilah always looks as though she is sporting a beard. She is a very lazy drinker and just sticks her head in the then lets it drip down. It's actually quite cute.

Bonnie is so used to us admiring her that she sits and watches us paddock clean. I'm sure she thinks it is just for her amusement.

Heaven Is A Place On Earth

2011-04-29T01:17:00.000+01:00

This is the end of a really traumatic day but all's well that ends well.

Those of you that follow this blog will know that we have four girls long overdue to birth and we have been on tenterhooks for weeks. Every time any of them go to the poo pile we have been really disappointed, thinking this is it and then they just poo. This morning Si kissed me goodbye because he had to go to the office, he said that maybe Sanctimonious could birth today because she was kushed away from the rest of the herd. I was standing at the French windows with my coffee watching them when I suddenly realised that Aurora was facing away from me but I could see white, she is a brown fancy with a white chest. There was a head presented but she had sat down. I waited and waited and nothing seemed to be happening but I text Si to let him know. I went across to give everybody their breakfast and Aurora got up and ran over, there was no way she was missing a meal. She stood eating and the head was no further out but I could see the feet and thought with the next push the sac would burst and things would start to happen. Once she had finished she just went and sat down again. Another 20 minutes passed and still nothing so I thought I had better go and intervene but she wouldn't let me anywhere near her. I went and stood in the barn so that I could watch her but she couldn't see me and still nothing happened and I was really starting to panic. Si then telephoned because I hadn't text him to let him know what we had had and I had to tell him that absolutely nothing was happening and I may have to phone the vet and suddenly Aurora gave a big push and the baby shot out. I hung up on Si and went across, the cria was really weak but I had the birth pack with me and I towelled her dry and sprayed her navel. The placenta was born straight away so I checked that over and realised that the baby had stopped breathing.

I am so grateful to my alpaca facebook friends from around the world as without all their discussions I wouldn't have known what to do next. I stayed really calm and massaged her heart at the same time as giving mouth to nose resuscitation and she suddenly shook slightly and started to breath. I really wanted to phone the vet or Wellground Alpaca Stud for help but didn't have any hands free to call them. Aurora had just walked off showing complete disinterest in her, Aurora's last baby had died with the previous owner and apparently Aurora hadn't been keen on feeding her. I got a coat on the baby and carried her into the chase thinking that Aurora would follow but she had just gone back to the herd.

Just before she had stopped breathing

I managed to coax Aurora in with the feed bucket and Bubbles also followed. The baby was making no attempt to stand after an hour but I did notice that Bubbles was sitting next to her and I thought that might have been putting Aurora off so I then had to get Bubbles back into the paddock at the same time as keeping Aurora with her baby. I made the area they had smaller and smaller so that Aurora was forced to stay near her baby and I noticed that she then started to hum and kiss her and sniff at her so that was an improvement but the baby still couldn't stand. I lifted her twice and she stood still the first time for about 2 minutes and then fell down and made no attempt to stand on her own so I did it again and she fell straight away. I gave her kick start and she got a little livelier but still seemed weak. Time was getting on by this time and I was about to get the colostrum as almost four hours had passed since she was born and I knew I had a limited time to get it into her. I decided to have one last attempt and made the pen area even smaller so that Aurora couldn't move far and I held the baby to her. It worked. I checked the babies mouth and there it was........milk. As it had got warmer I took her coat off so that she could dry properly in the sun and absorb some of the rays from the afternoon sun.

The pair of them really got the hang of this feeding game. She was up and down all afternoon feeding. Aurora has finally learned how to be patient.

They have bonded so well. When we lifted the baby at 5pm to feed her we were covered in spit and I have never felt so happy to be covered in the smelly green stuff. Aurora is now really protective.

We let them back in the paddock this evening and all the aunties came over. Well, everybody loves that new baby smell. Eleanor was really happy because the new baby has been running around with her now. While I was trying to coax her to feed and to stand I kept telling her how heavenly she was so that is her name. Heaven.

When Si walked into the paddock to see her she ran straight over to him and stood next to his legs. It's not fair. If she is going to bond with a human it should be me, I did all the hard work.

So my facebook buddies you helped save a life today and can I introduce you all to Ashdale Heaven.

After An Exciting Day It's Hard To Stay Awake

2011-04-28T00:54:00.000+01:00

Well, they say that no news is good news so that must mean that the overdue pregnant females are all carrying beautiful female cria. I feel like a child waiting for Christmas.

Another glorious day weatherwise but the ground is cracking it is so dry. We will be so grateful when the promised rain arrives on Friday, this means that I can finally scatter the wildflower seeds just inside the entrance to our farm. I'm hoping to make the area really colourful as soon as people come through the gate. We will be planting more trees there in the Autumn.

Four boys left us today, they have been sold and gone off to pastures new. We are feeling really flattered as we were recommended by two different people and their new owners travelled quite a way to see and then collect them. We gave them preventative treatments and trimmed their nails, with difficulty as they had only been done last month, but we want to make the transition easier for the new owners. They will have their full medical history back to when they were born including every manicure. I love Herd Manager it makes it so easy to be efficient. We haven't marked them as sold on the website but that can wait until tomorrow now, we have only listed the boys for sale on there as we think prospective purchasers would want to examine the fleeces of the girls that we have for sale before making decisions.

Si has been doing more halter training on two of the younger boys that are also up for sale.

Biffy showing what a clever boy he is for the camera.

He can also walk in tandem with Timothy.

Si even managed to find time to get the strimmer out and attack the nettles, These longer, light evenings are such a help in getting all the extra little jobs done around the place.

I heard of a really tragic dog attack on alpacas in the US today. Their owner has written the most beautiful tribute to the animals that she really loved. The link to it is here. I defy any alpaca owner to read this without crying. My heart goes out to her, I couldn't imagine anything more horrifying happening to these gentle animals.

Maybe Tomorrow

2011-04-26T00:00:00.000+01:00

We've never had to wait this long for cria before and we don't like it. The overdue girls have just been sitting round all day soaking up the sunshine, it would seem that we are the only ones getting stressed about the situation. They are getting through a lot of water with a couple of them hardly moving from their drink containers.

The goats have made sure that we haven't been getting bored and are going through a lot of willow and hawthorn which we are still delivering to them twice a day. Sweetheart had his head stuck in the fence again and when Si went to rescue him he noticed that there appeared to be something in his eye. He came back to the house to get some pre-boiled water and cotton buds to try to remove it but at the same time I was delivering a fresh takeaway to them and he decided to free himself from the fence to partake. By the time Si had returned to do some emergency medical cleansing to his eye whatever had been there had gone.

As well as delivering treats to the goats we have been picking nettles for the pigs, we have been dressing appropriate for the weather in shorts and tee-shirts but his now seems unwise as we are both sitting here covered in nasty red bumps and trying hard not to scratch. I think we need to cover up more before we collect any more for them.

Born of Frustration

2011-04-25T00:49:00.001+01:00

Still no babies. We're on day 370 for two of the girls and we even resorted to lifting their tails this evening to see if there was any softening but nobody is showing any signs of being near to giving birth, no humming to their cria, which is one of the signs we have come to expect in the last few days. They aren't even showing any signs of an udder. They are in full fleece and we have had no rain for a couple of weeks now, we are enjoying the weather but we think the poor alpacas are suffering a bit and we can't put the paddling pool out for them in case they give birth over it and drown the cria. We have been pouring water on the ground so that they can sit on a cool area but it isn't as much fun for them as splashing themselves. We are supposed to have a few drops of rain tonight but it hasn't arrived yet and the heatwave is due to carry on for the next few days.

Biffy and Timothy have started their halter training and Biffy took to it straight away, Timothy decided that he he was leading. It looked as though he was training Si and taking him for a walk. These two boys have been the easiest to train so far or it may just be that we are more experienced at doing it now.

Jemima (Mimi) is still confined with Cherrybomb to a small area to try to get some of their weight off, they have taken to sticking their heads through the fencing and eating the grass as far as they can reach.

Ashdale Delilah is loving being in her new paddock with fresh lush grass, along with the other cria from last year. We are putting her up for sale, she has an excellent pedigree as her dam is Hemiccoyo Cricket of Cambridge and she was sired by EP Cambridge Samson. Her sire and brother are both Supreme Champions.

You Build Up Hope

2011-04-20T00:43:00.000+01:00

Still no babies, they say a watched pot never boils and this seems to apply to alpacas too. A couple of times today we had our hopes built up but then they just went back to normal. Everytime one lifts her tail we think that she is about to give birth, if they roll in their dust bath we think they are having contractions. We're now thinking that it is some kind of conspiracy, the weather would be perfect to have little ones running around in the paddocks.

Chance is one of our angels. She has only produced girls for us and the first two have already won prizes for their fleeces, following in her footsteps, last years cria hasn't had hers entered into any shows as yet but it is looking and feeling even better than her older sisters. Chance has a permanent dent in her fleece around her neck as whichever paddock we put her in she always wants to feed from the next one and she will reach through as far as she can so that the stock wire digs into her fleece.

Temple is Chance's daughter from 2009 and we are looking forward to seeing her cria later in the year. She still loves to settle next to her mum to sleep at night.

There is still no rain forecast for the foreseeable future and we are in desperate need of it as the resting paddocks have been reseeded in the bare patches. We will have to resort to watering it ourselves for the next few days from the water butts. We're not complaining about the sunshine but it would be nice if it rained lightly through the night.

Thorn In My Side

2011-04-18T00:34:00.000+01:00

Still no news on the birthing front. Si actually crawled around the paddock trying to look under the girls to see if there was any sign of an udder on any of them but only Kylie shows any signs and she was only due today.

As the goats have been moved into their new paddock we became aware of a problem, nothing that couldn't be overcome without an added chore for us. They no longer have access to a hedge and they loved to nibble away at the willow, hawthorn and blackthorn so we now have to cut a few branches every day. Problem solved. They no longer have a buffet but have a new home delivery service.

Cherub enjoying her takeaway

Sweetheart was sulking when we took the second delivery of twigs. He keeps sticking his head through the fence to get whatever is on the other side of it and he has damaged his ear tags. Today he ripped his ear slightly so we decided to take his tags out before he hurt himself further. He fought and moaned whilst we held him down to do it but they are now out and he has blue ears from the terramycin spray.

Penny posing for the camera and My Bonnie decided she had to try and get in shot. They are really getting used to the camera now.

We did a spit off with Nata today and she has held her pregnancy, it seems strange checking that she is pregnant to produce cria in 2012. Mimi who is one of the fat bottomed girls was mated to Cooper today, we're not sure that she will conceive as she still looks really overweight but not as bad as Cherrybomb. Wisden was introduced to Juno today to see if he is ready yet to perform stud duties but even though Juno kept circling him with her tail up he didn't show any interest so we will try him again next month.

We also had another telephone call from a couple who are interested in keeping alpacas and they are due to visit us next weekend. I'm just hoping that we have more new cria to be able to show them. There is definitely a lot of interest in alpaca farming out there at the moment.

Fat Bottomed Girls

2011-04-17T01:35:00.000+01:00

We have started our own branch of weight watchers here and thankfully we only have two members, Cherrybomb and Mimi. The vet has checked them both and the conclusion is that because they weren't pregnant they gained weight and because they are overweight it is now going to be difficult to get them pregnant, I think you could call that 'Catch 22'. They have been put onto limited grazing and will just have to fill themselves up on hay whether they like it or not, neither of them are very happy with the situation but needs must and all that.

We had an early start this morning, mainly to check on the overdue pregnancies, surely those girls can't hold on much longer if the mating dates we were given are correct, but Si alternated between checking out of the window and watching the Grand Prix qualifying rounds on TV. Once they had finished we set to on the chores and some more farm improvements but had left the telephones inside. We had been doing some paddock cleaning when we noticed some people at the gate so Si went down to see if anything was wrong. They had been trying to telephone us to make an appointment to see the alpacas as they are interested in buying a few for their land. We were more than happy to show this lovely couple around and talk alpaca with them, it gave us a welcome break. They asked if it would be ok to return in the next couple of weeks and we are always happy to have visitors who want to learn more about alpacas. The wife said she could see what I meant on our website about them being totally addictive.

They were delighted with the way the alpacas hummed softly to each other and Ms Humphreys and Bonnie were more than happy to show how they communicated with each other. Bonnie is still really active and wants to spend her days playing and charging around, it's as though she doesn't have enough hours in the day to get into all the trouble she wants to create.

Rat Trap

2011-04-15T22:42:00.000+01:00

No pictures today and no babies either. The weather has been absolutely dire so we're quite pleased that nobody gave birth otherwise we would have had to rush them into the barn to keep warm and dry.

'Ben' has been running round in my head all day. By that I mean the old Michael Jackson song and it is getting really annoying. We attended a talk on vermin control last night and obviously the main thing that people wanted to know about was how to keep their local rat populations under control. I have never seen so many different traps but when the guns came out all the men in the room sat up and were mesmerised.

The pregnant girls who are due to give birth during July and August have been moved from the Cafe Bar, so that we can reseed the bare areas, to Sunset Strip with beautiful lush bright grass. I tried to make things more interesting by giving the paddocks names because it got confusing when one of us referred to the top paddock when there are actually three up there. I love the way they get all excited when they are moved to fresh grazing, they run around before deciding where to graze first. They must all be looking for the one really sweet blade of grass as though they have been handed a box of chocolates and can't decide which one to choose.

Home Sweet Home

2011-04-14T00:25:00.000+01:00

Today we have had rain and we are so grateful for this as we have put grass seed in the bald patches in the empty paddocks, fingers crossed that it gets a chance to grow before the birds eat it all. It has been such a strange time here as Hope, Sanctimonious and Aurora are now well past their due dates and they are really hormonal. Hope has been trying to mount Aurora who has been spitting with a vengeance. Eleanor is still desperate for another cria to play with and every time poor Bubbles tries to have a nap she is woken up. She has even resorted to pronking with Eleanor of an evening, we think this is a ploy to tire her out so that she sleeps longer. Bubbles isn't due to have her cria until the end of summer but it looked as though she was trying to bounce it out last night,

Cherrybomb is really overweight and has been acting pregnant although she is empty. We had the vet out to give her Estrumate on last Thursday and she was mated again on Sunday. She has a fantastic fleece and we really want to see what she can produce in a cria so more fingers are crossed making it extremely difficult to knit. We have also cut down on her grazing time and she has been put on a diet by keeping her by the barn and only letting her out into the paddock for a couple of hours a day.

Cherub and Sweetheart are enjoying having a new home. When it rains they act as though somebody is throwing acid at them and run for shelter straight away so today they still had space to play indoors. I think they should have curtains and fitted carpet but Si reckons he has to finish fitting the windows first.

Hammer Time

2011-04-12T00:23:00.000+01:00

Si has been busy building a new home for the pygmy goats, Sweetheart and Cherub. It all came with instructions on how to put it together, but obviously he had to do that male thing and completely disregard them. It was all completed and looking great and I was getting excited about getting the goats into their new paddock when he announced that the roof would have to come off again because he had two pieces of wood left over that were part of the roof eaves frame. Maybe a bit of reading before reaching for the hammer would have been a good idea.

Ashdale Cooper should be looking quite content at the moment as he has been a busy boy and getting plenty of action on the empty females. We can't wait to see what he produces as he has genetics from EP Cambridge Peruvian Spartacus from his sire EP Cambridge Samson.

Ashdale Carrie in the foreground with Ashdale Penny Lane making sure that she gets in the picture too.

Ashdale My Bonnie is a right little madam and is showing some of last years cria who is the leader of the pack. She is great fun to watch of an evening when she tries to get everybody to play with her, if they don't join in with the pronking she just jumps on them until they do.

Are You Lonesome Tonight?

2011-04-02T01:35:00.000+01:00

We've had an exciting few days. Sick pigs, good biscuits and visitors.

On Sunday Si went to give the pigs their evening meal when he noticed that Coke, one of our Kune Kune pigs was limping. He checked her back leg and it appeared to be swollen but he couldn't find any cuts on it so he telephoned for the vet (why do we always need a vet at the weekend?). He couldn't find a reason for her to have damaged her leg so he had to surmise that it was because the ground was so hard that she had twisted it. She was administered painkillers and anti-inflammatories by injection and you should have heard her scream, it was absolutely heartbreaking. Si was told that if she was no better the next day that he could collect some painkillers to give her in her food. He drove the ten mile round trip into Axminster to collect them but when he tried to give them to her she wouldn't even get up to eat. We were panicking a bit by then so he phoned the surgery again and was told to go and collect some injectibles so another 10 mile round trip was made. By the time he got back she had made a remarkable recovery and was walking round again, she has been given the painkillers in her food, Si is cutting little slots in carrots and apples into which he puts the pills for her.

Rosemary from Westhill Alpacas was supposed to visit on Wednesday but she couldn't make it. I was having a truly blonde day and I was putting the kettle on for coffee when she phoned. I got a cup out of the cupboard, put coffee in, poured the water over and then added milk all while were chatting and then realised what I had done. I told her that I hoped she enjoyed the cup of coffee I had just made for her. Si had bought some really nice biscuits for her visit which I then had to eat myself.

On Thursday we had a visit from a really nice couple who are interested in alpacas. We had a good fleece rummage and I had warned them that Si could bore the pants off anyone who asked about bloodlines. He has spent so much time researching the Australian and New Zealand registries. They still asked questions. We chatted about their plans and the work we had done here but we forgot our obligations as alpaca farmers and didn't get the biscuit tin out, we obviously still have so much to learn. They are probably going to pay us another visit soon. We had cria due 10 days ago and I really wanted to lay on a birth for them but the alpacas were having none of it and we are still waiting now. Hope is humming quite a bit so I am hoping that she is telling her cria it is time to get out.

Eleanor Rigby is growing fast and could really do with a playmate in her paddock to run around with of an evening. She seems really lonely pronking on her own and loves attention.

Si has almost finished the new goat paddock, then he has a new shed to build for them.

Are You Dead Or Are You Sleeping?

2011-03-21T01:13:00.000Z

The warmth and sunshine is all very well but it does encourage the alpacas to frighten the living daylights out of us. Below is the sight we woke to this morning, we had seen her ear twitch before we got the camera out though. Si jumped over the fence just to make sure that My Bonnie was ok and she jumped up and ran to her mum. Ms Humphreys just stared back at us as though we were making a fuss over nothing. I don't think it matters how many cria are born each one is fascinating in it's own way and it's so exciting to watch them develop, I just hate it when they lie flat out enjoying the sunshine. I think I will have to make it clear that they are only allowed to sleep when I do.

The paddocks had been cleaned by 9am so that Si could get on with some fencing and be free my midday to take photographs of some yarn and knitwear while the sun was high in the sky. Tilly came out to help but we ended up with wellington boots, thumbs, shadows and dogs in the pictures once we got them onto the computer so that experience will have to be repeated.

Tilly trying to eat the props

She is obviously short-sighted if she has to get that close to read the label

The boys have had their toe nails cut today and Eleanor Rigby and My Bonnie have both had their first injections of Lambivac. We must be going mad because it seemed like a good idea to clean all the paddocks again before it went dark, I think it was just another excuse to watch the babies play before bedtime, theirs not ours.

Once we had got dinner out of the way we entered the medications and pedicures onto herd manager, registered My Bonnie with BAS as we always like to have it done within 7 days, we then filled in all our entry forms for the GWR Fleece and Yarn Show, they will be put in the post tomorrow along with a cheque. Another busy day but at least we feel as though we have really achieved something.

The Sun Has Got His Hat On

2011-03-20T01:42:00.000Z

Today all the animals and humans here at Ashdale Apacas have been making the most of the beautiful weather. Si has been erecting more fencing, all the paddocks are clean as we got round to raking up the hay that the alpacas had scattered around. Animals have been moved around and a lot of time has been spent watching My Bonnie playing with last years cria, whether they want to play with her or not.

In a quiet moment of contemplation with Delilah, who is desperately in need of a topknot trim

We still think that Exhibition, Carrie, Penny Lane and Delilah are tiny until they are next to My Bonnie

We have spent tonight working on the website and are hoping to photograph some of the knitwear for the online shop along with some decent pictures of Cooper for the stud page. The weather is looking in our favour again so fingers crossed that it isn't too windy, we did try on a few occasions to take some shots inside of the knitwear but the lighting seems to be wrong in here and the shades came out all wrong.

My Bonnie

2011-03-18T00:15:00.000Z

We had a work schedule planned for today that included lots of fencing, tidying up the barn and some paddock maintenance but it all went by the board for a really good reason. I woke at 7am and jumped straight out of bed shouting 'Ms Humphreys'. I thought that we had slept in but when I looked out of the window Ms Humphreys was fine and sitting in her dust bath, I was sure that she was going to birth today as she had spent quite a lot of yesterday sitting around humming. Oh well, never mind, the weather was dry and sunny so it meant we would get most of the chores done so I put the kettle on to make coffee. I was just looking out of the window admiring last years cria when Ms Humpreys got up and walked to the poo pile. There was a head waving around under her tail so I called Si to hurry. We had a beautiful cria on the ground by 7.08, we know this because Si threw his clothes on and grabbed the camera so it was timed. Wow, that's the way to do it.

'What is THAT?'

My Bonnie searching for the milk bar

Not only beautiful but talented too. She does impersonations, here she is being a swan.

We had no worries about the cria, we are delighted with the colour and even more so by the fact it is another female. Ok, so not all of the chores were done but we have spent quite a bit of the day just admiring our new addition. She has been racing round with the weanlings this evening and even tried to feed from Delilah who soon saw her off.

We have carried on the song theme with names and as we already have Penny Lane and Eleanor Rigby we have called her My Bonnie as this was the first single released by the Beatles and she really is bonnie, although you can't see it in the todays shots she has huge eyes.

Get Up In The Morning Already Yawning

2011-03-13T23:12:00.000Z

It has been an absolutely mad couple of days but they have definitely proved how popular alpacas are becoming and their raison d'être. We have attended a show where Si was to give a talk on alpacas and a demonstration on toenail cutting; we had a stall showing our yarn and knitwear products. It has meant a really early start both days but has proved extremely profitable, flattering and fun.

We work closely with Westhill Alpacas in Dorset because they believe in the same principles as us where alpaca farming is concerned. We have both been breeding for high quality fibre and we mix the best of both herds to produce the finest yarn. We are both basically following the example of Wellground Alpaca Stud in Wiltshire, they set the standard and recommended that we only purchase top quality alpacas and breed for fine fibre. This has paid off as both Westhill and ourselves have won prizes for our fleeces.

I'm afraid I have really let the side down with my photography though. I took pictures of everybody's stall before it opened to the public and only managed a rear shot of ours in the background of somebody elses. I have had to crop the photo to be able to show it.

We started off the weekend with two large boxes of hand-knitted stock and our table was overflowing before we had got half of it out. As soon as the gates opened we had customers, compliments were flying thick and fast. We were told by one lady that our yarn was more beautiful than cashmere. A lady who had a knitwear stall came down to us on Saturday afternoon and said that it was no wonder we were so busy as everybody could see the quality and people would be willing to pay high prices for it. I had worried that our prices seemed high compared with other products that were on sale. We had an amazing first day and I was really excited when I emailed Rosemary with the results last night. It surely couldn't carry on like that.

Up at 6 again this morning feeling exhausted deflated because it had to have been a fluke yesterday surely. I mean there is supposed to be a recession and it is also March so not exactly the best time of year to sell luxury products. Well, we couldn't have been more wrong. Less than an hour after the gates had opened today we had sold two of our larger and more expensive items. We also had an item that was knitted from alpaca that didn't come from one of our herds and people really felt the difference. Stunning, beautiful, exquisite were just a few of the adjectives used to describe our knitwear and that was by customers not us. My head was growing at such a rate I thought I was going to have to walk out of the building via the roller shutter entrance.

Si gave his talk to a really interested audience and the boys were really well behaved during their toenail demonstration. It went so well that a committee member from another show has asked him to do it again at a different venue and while that was going on I got a text from an organiser of another show asking us to take a couple of alpacas. We don't attend alpaca halter shows for biosecurity reasons but it would appear there is no need.

Just a last word to Rosemary, if you are reading this you shouldn't be, you should be knitting, we need two dozen pairs of lacy gloves for next month, we also have an order for US and I could have sold the grey beret four times over so we need more of those. I may make an item or 20 myself.

The Good, The Bad and The Beautiful

2011-03-09T21:16:00.000Z

We haven't blogged for a while because we have been really upset. Rosie who was pregnant and, according to the breeder, was due to birth in September 2010, gave birth to a tiny boy during the night at the beginning of Feb, he was dead and still attached to the placenta, weighing 3.3kg in total. We had a post mortem done and there was no reason for his death but VLA acknowledged that he was premature. We gave Rosie antibiotics the same day but she died two days later. VLA can find absolutely no reason for her death either. It was really upsetting as there has been somebody here every day since August last year waiting for her to birth. She had been scanned twice and there had been a heart beat both times and even though the vet had told us that the due date was wrong we didn't want to believe him but it has now been confirmed. It doesn't really help being told that there was nothing that we could have done about it, sometimes it feels as though it would have been better if a reason had been found on PM.

On a brighter note. We had to leave the premises for me to go to a doctors appointment on 1st February. We were gone for all of 2 hours and look what we found when we got back.

Si had checked Nata, who we knew was probably due to birth during that week and there was no sign of any change. We were unpacking some shopping when he noticed something in the paddock, he ran across and found a very weak cria. He warmed it up by drying it with a towel and then we carried her into the barn with mother following close behind. By this time we thought that we had better check the sex of the cria and were delighted to find it was another female. We've had quite a run on the pink ones. I phoned Head Office (Wellground Alpaca Stud) for advice on a winter birth and the main thing was to get her warm. Si kept trying to get her to stand but she seemed unable to on her own. Everytime he took his hands away she just flopped to the ground. I wasn't going to get attached as I was convinced she was going to die but we persevered. We gave her 'Kick Start' and kept holding her up to her mum's teats and eventually she started suckling. Everytime the sun shone over the next few days she was taken out to absorb some rays. She was given Vitamin A,D and E gel at one week and livened up considerably, a few weeks later we gave her an injection of liquid sunshine and it worked like magic and it even enabled her to pronk the next day. She is now so lively and needs a playmate as she is driving the rest of the pregnant girls mad by jumping on them whenever they lie down.

We didn't name her for a couple of weeks but she is now known as Eleanor Rigby and here she was yesterday squinting at the sunshine.

I have been able to take a few shots over the past few days, mainly because I have remembered to take the camera with me but also because the weather has been lovely and sunny.

I was trying to get a shot of Juno sitting sunbathing but Larra decided that she had to be in every shot so I gave up in the end and included her too.

The Humph is due to birth next and we are really looking forward to seeing what she produces. She has been mated to Andean Thunder of I-Spy who is owned by Peter and Carol Watt of Ashton Lane Alpacas. He is a beautiful Rose Grey Suri. At the moment The Humph is looking after all of last years cria in the birthing paddock. They were all late births so have only just been separated from their mums and they spent a few days crying right under the window. There's nothing like weaning time to put you on a guilt trip.

Stuck In The Middle

2011-01-12T23:21:00.000Z

No photographs today as it has been a real struggle getting around. It has rained so much the past few days that the ground is really sticky and I have felt as though I have been walking through jelly today. The heavens opened this morning and didn't stop raining down all day so only the necessary chores got done, the paddock cleaning was neglected but the barn got a good cleaning and fresh straw put down.

I am thinking that the Australian girls have taken offence at something I've said to them. I mentioned on Sunday that when Si is here they don't seem to drink as much water but on the days he is absent they develop a terrible thirst and I have to keep topping up the drinkers. I'm sure they must be getting enough from the grass at the moment and they have been eating slightly less hay hence there is no reason for them to be this thirsty, so it must be a conspiracy.

Great news on Rob's blog about the yarn and products from the alpaca fibre. News like that just encourages us to work those knitting needles faster.

Si took over the computer earlier and has put our wethers up for sale on alpaca seller. Tomorrow we have a visit from our vet to scan what, I hope, are the pregnant females just for confirmation and then we have to choose which of the girls we can bear to part with. The answer to that is actually none, but I know I have to be sensible.

Dum de dum de dum de dum

2011-01-10T00:06:00.000Z

I couldn't think of a song title but the above should be sung to the theme of 'The Archers'. That's what I always sing in my head when Si talks football to me but tonight he has been going on about the quality of my photography. Apparently, I have taken the shot of him and Carl working on the barn in Digital Zoom when I should really have used Optical Zoom and then he started going on and on about pixels. I have only just stopped putting the camera up to my eye to take photos and to top that he has just informed me that 'The Archers' theme tune is called 'Barwick Green'. (Dum de dum de dum de dum). The only excuse I can make for him is that he is an accountant.

I took a photo yesterday of the quality of Exhibitions fleece but that wasn't good enough to put on and then I took a shot of a dock growing to prove that the grass and weeds have been taking full advantage of the warm temperatures. I couldn't believe it, the grass growing again already, it really does make me feel as though it is spring. Carl confirmed that Rosemary had been saying the same thing over on Ibberton Hill. That should help us cut back on hay a little and I may risk reseeding the areas where the grass has died on previously used alpaca poo piles.

Anyway, this morning Carl arrived to help Si clad the barn. After a bit of messing round breaking drill bits, recharging drill batteries, fixing the generator and although it wasn't mentioned there was probably a fair bit of cursing going on they started to clad the barn. The wood was wet through so was really heavy and they had to move it two pieces at a time from where it had been dropped off by the delivery man. I was impressed by how fast they actually got the cladding on after fixing the beams to the frame. I did point out to them towards the end of the day that they should have sorted the Yorkshire Boards into shade order and then fixed them. Carl did ask if I wanted them taken off so that they could start again but I thought I would let them off with that as I am sure they will look fine once they have been stained.

Yesterday we administered Lambivac and Panacur as a preventative measure to all the girls and cria as they were dry for the first time for weeks. The ground was still sodden and we squelched our way around to clean the paddocks. We had one girl that had been really stroppy since we got her and she refused to come to the feeders and I was worried that she wasn't getting supplementary feed but the bad weather really helped. As she couldn't graze while there was snow on the ground and the hay racks were empty of a morning she would come over looking for food and I managed to get her to eat some alfalfa (this has been referred to on my facebook page by a breeder in US as crack for alpacas) she loved it, I gradually reduced the amount of alfalfa so that she was only eating camelibra and she is now first to the feeder when she sees either of us. I talked softly to her while I was feeding her and this seems to have built up trust. When we wanted to do a fecal test on her last year it took three of us to hold her down. Our poor vet was thrown to the ground, I was knocked into a fence and Si jumped out of the way. Yesterday she stood perfectly still while I held and talked to her and Si administered the injection and drench. We were astounded, but it just goes to show that you only have to build trust with alpacas.

Thank You Very Much

2011-01-07T22:34:00.001Z

Rosie still hasn't given birth. BAS sent us an email last year regarding mating service certificates, I'm really hoping that they implement this idea as it would help us to keep an accurate track of due dates. According to our records she is now on day 446 so it will be another call to the vet for a scan on Tuesday. It looks as though she still has a really lively cria in there but it would be good to check again. It's getting so stressful watching her constantly to make sure that she isn't uncomfortable and never leaving the premises in case she goes into labour. These beautiful, gentle animals do have the ability to drive you to distraction sometimes. The weather today has really matched my mood. Misty and wet. I have been saved by long telephone calls to Rosemary at Westhill Alpacas and Rob and Les at Head Office (Wellground Alpaca Stud). They have listened to my ramblings for hours today and after chatting to them I felt a lot more positive so my thanks go to all of them. It's so good to know that we have made friends down here even though they are still too far away to pop over and share a glass of wine with. We are now making plans for future matings as Rosemary has recently acquired a beautiful black Witness boy for future sire duties and with Rob and Les I was planning repeat matings as we are so pleased with the quality of this years cria from Close Encounter, Lionheart and Samson with the added bonus they were all girls.

We have been planning which animals to put up for sale, I know we have to, so we will be putting some up for sale over the weekend. We just have to decide who. We bought fantastic Australian bloodlines to start with and carried on with using top quality stud males. I will hate to let any of them go, but go they must.

We couldn't take any photos today but the alpacas certainly don't look their best, I don't know why they still feel the need to roll in the mud when they are so wet already.

The Race Is On

2011-01-03T22:13:00.000Z

We have been working around the rain the past few days trying to get all the jobs done that were made impossible by the snow. We moved the females on to new pasture and they were so happy when they saw where they were going that they raced right past me.

Before they were moved we gave the cria some oral medication and they went straight to their mum's for a feed, it must have been to take the nasty taste away.

I managed to get a photograph of Ashdale Exhibition to show Rob at Wellground. She is out of Cambridge Larralluh and her sire is Wellground Close Encounter. We are so pleased with this cria and have raved about her on the telephone to Head Office but Rob hasn't managed to see her yet. She seemed quite happy to pose for me, under all that dirt is an amazing white lustre.

Rosemary told me I could crochet and I really can now. I have made a cloche hat, it's brilliant how fast crochet is and if you drop a stitch it doesn't travel down. I just need Rosemary to tell me that I can win the lottery and I know I will. Everybody needs a Rosemary in their lives.

And I Feel Like I'm Clinging To A Cloud

2010-12-29T23:55:00.000Z

No photographs today as it has been so misty here since the snow cleared, hence the title.

We knew the temperatures had risen on Boxing Day as the alpacas ventured out of the barn, this also meant that we had running water for the first time in over a week. It was such a relief. On Monday it was raining which cleared the last of the snow away and it was lovely to see the animals grazing again, it's just a pity that we haven't been able to see them through the mist for the past two days. It did mean that the work load had lightened a little as we didn't have to keep up a constant supply of warm water and we could cut out the lunch time feed. The biggest problem we had was that the paddocks looked dreadful and we had a weeks cleaning to do.

Si had been looking forward to having four days off over Xmas to get some of the jobs done around here but because of the weather his time was taken up with defrosting the tap to fill up all the water containers again. He did manage to get another isolation paddock fenced.

We also had a visit from Rosemary, Carl and Sam from Westhill Alpacas. Rosemary always makes me laugh. If I say I can't do something she always tells me that I can, she has more faith in me than I do. She decided that I could crochet, I told her I couldn't. I knew how to make a chain and that was about it. People have always told me that it is much easier than knitting so I decided to put it to the test. I put down my knitting at 11pm last night and by 11.30 I had made a chrysanthemum. That's right. You didn't misread it. I made an orange chrysanthemum. It looks just like the picture in the book too. Just don't tell Rosemary or she will decide I can crochet coats, dresses and all manner of things and I really want to tackle a carnation next.

The log burner is proving to be a roaring success. It doesn't just heat the room, it heats the whole home. We have been sitting here of an evening with all the doors open wearing summer clothes. The dog can't cope. She has got so used to the cold temperatures in here the past two winters that the heat is making her sulk. She won't stay in the same room as us and is constantly trying to find somewhere cool. She has even taken to sleeping on the floor, throwing herself down with a huge sigh, just like a sulky teenage girl; I'm waiting for her to start saying 'Whatever'. Normally only the sofa is good enough and she needs an extra cushion too. It has even been too hot for us to sleep when it has gone out.

Living In A Box .....................

2010-12-23T23:06:00.000Z

............... of Xmas Cards. It's very picturesque here but extremely hard work at the moment.

We still have no running water and Si is having to go and defrost the tap at the top of our land when the temperatures get up to 0C which is about the warmest we have experienced for the past week. He is carrying down containers full of water which we are warming before we give it to the animals. The only problem is that because they are only eating dried feed and hay they are thirsty all the time. I didn't help matters yesterday when I fell over when entering the barn. I fell over a hurdle which ended up flat on the ground with me on top of it. A full container of warm water flew out of my hands and all over the floor. I was more upset about the waste of water which then froze overnight into a solid sheet of ice. I ended up with imprints of the hurdle on my legs. I was even too sore to knit last night.

Looking on the bright side, doesn't the snow make everything look tidy?

The sight of the barn roof amused us. It is obvious which side of the barn the animals sleep on. They must be warm in there because they have managed to melt the snow over their sleeping area just from their body heat. Today I was worried about Exhibition, she is our beautiful cria from Larralluh, sired by Wellground Close Encounter. The other cria have started to eat Alfalfa, even searching the ground for any bits that have been knocked out of the feeders. Exhibition hasn't been eating any although she is eating hay constantly and we haven't really seen her feeding from her mum. I thought she was a bit on the thin side compared to the other cria so a call to Head Office was made. We had checked Larra and there is no sign of mastitis but we were worried that her milk may have dried up, Les recommended goats milk and even told us which brand she uses if she has to bottle feed any cria. Poor Si drove into Axminster to try to find it and then sent me a text to say that he couldn't find it so I recommended another store and he found it there, it had to be the exact brand. We haven't done any Xmas shopping yet, apart from carrots for the alpacas. Oh no, I lie. My daughter did some shopping in Liverpool for me yesterday. She shopped for me while we spoke on the phone, she described items for me and once I had agreed she took them home, photographed them and put them up on facebook for my approval. That's the way to do it. If I didn't like anything she was going to change them for me today.

These are now my 'Ladies who lunch'. They only come out to be fed and obviously 'The Humph' is first in the queue. She goes to the first feeder inside the paddock and stands and moans until the food is put in front of her.

I tried to get a shot of both of the goats in the barn. Sweetheart stood still for me but Cherub was more interested in trying to eat my jacket. They are staying nice and snug in the barn too. We bought a new shed for them and have had the posts put in for their new paddock but all our time has been taken up with breaking ice, defrosting pipes and carrying water that no improvements have been done. It looks as though we are in for a bit of a heatwave next week though with temperatures forecast up to 10C. We won't know ourselves. I might be able to cast off some of the layers, we will have running water, the snow will melt and we will be able to see grass. I'm just hoping the girls will still realise what it is because it is costing a fortune in hay.

Today I have learnt that I shouldn't open my emails whilst drinking a cup of tea. tt was hilarious. The culprit knows who he is.

The Fool On The Hill

2010-12-17T21:46:00.000Z

Today we have had weather. We woke to a light covering of snow along with mist. then we had rain which turned into another snow storm along with high winds. This afternoon the sun came out and then we had more snow. The Australian girls have taken to living in the barn although they have free access to their paddock but as they have now trained the human in the hat to do room service to their liking they have decided they only have to venture out when it is time for their hard feed. I flatly refuse to unscrew their feeders and put them up in the barn.

I started the day by delivering warm water to all the alpacas and they really enjoy this as they are going through so much of it. I am having to give them gallons of it during the day. Luckily, Si fitted the log burner yesterday so we are warm too. I have been using the top of it to heat up pans of water through the day.

The Peruvian girls ventured out as far as the field shelter but they don't have to go outdoors for the rest of the day as their hay is all in there and they are getting through an awful lot of it. You can just see Nata's backend sticking out.

Cherrybomb actually lifted her head up while I was in the barn with them to enable me to get a quick shot of her.

The other girls don't think I'm worth bothering about if I don't have a bucket in my hand. All I could hear was nom, nom, nom and the occasional hum so they seem happy enough.

We did have a bit of a mishap which entailed calling out the vet. I found Halo standing with her nose against a fence post oblivious to everything and she was still there half an hour later. Larra was in the barn shaking and actually let me go up and stroke her. Something wrong here, I thought and quickly phoned the vet. I covered Larra with a towel to keep her warm because she must be cold. The vet examined Larra and said that he couldn't find anything wrong with her and that all the alpacas looked really well. He even congratulated me on how healthy they all looked. Halo seemed fine too. The next day 3 of them were scouring so we called the vet out again. I was worried that they weren't getting enough goodness so was making a mix of alfafa and oats. They get camelibra for breakfast and dinner but I thought they would feel warmer if they had lunch too. I had been mixing it in a bucket with hot water, but preparing it the night before and then just topping it up with more hot water before I went out with it. I had mentioned to Si that it smelt of beer when I was stirring it. Oops, it had been fermenting in the bucket overnight. They loved it.
It would appear that Halo was stoned. Larra had the DT's and the others were just suffering from the morning after the night before. They now get fed it dry and I warm the water in their buckets. They were all fine the day after I stopped soaking it.

Rosie is still pregnant. Day 425 and Alpaca Manager is almost ready to go into meltdown.

I have now started to knit for Xmas 2011. Carl Aylett deserves Salesman of the Year Award. Rosemary came to visit last week and collected a load of knitting that I had done. She then emailed with more orders so I rushed through those and got them in the post to her. This is all along with the knitting that Rosemary and 'The Lady in the Village' have done. I finally saw some of the items that 'The Lady in the Village' had made from our yarn and they are absolutely beautiful. I had got Si to set up our online shop and he took photo's one night ready to upload but Rosemary had emailed ordering the stock for customers that Carl had got. They didn't get on there. I have now knitted another item for him to get a snap of so we can actually get it up and running. It's brilliant that everybody loves the alpaca items, the fibre does feel a lot softer and warmer than anything else you can buy.

I'm still waiting

2010-12-10T23:30:00.000Z

Ms Humphrey's staring at Cherrybomb trying to ge her to move from prime position.

The girls are now sleeping in the barn every night. We don't have doors on but it is still warm and cozy inside. I was speaking to Head Office (Wellground Alpaca Stud) and they may have a dancing alpaca but I am claiming that my girls are housetrained. They go outside to poo so it saves me having to muck out the barn every morning which is just as well because for the past week it has been a full time job keeping them supplied with hay and water. We have even been bringing some of the water troughs into the sitting room of an evening so that I have water to give them first thing and then just keep topping them up with warm water during the day.

Rosie is STILL pregnant. 423 days, but whose counting. We have had the vet out again and everything still seems fine and I am glad that the cria is warm and safe during the dreadful weather we have had. I have been warned that it could be a difficult birth with being so late but Matty is still reluctant to induce yet. We may have another scan done later this week if there is still nothing happening. It has been no fun crawling round on the ice and snow trying to see if there is an udder or looking under her tail.

It has looked magical here with the heavy frost covering the branches on the trees and the but it keeps us too busy to enjoy looking at it. We only had snow for a couple of days but the frost also stopped the poor animals getting to the grass.

Today has felt tropical in comparison and an even brighter note to my day was a visit from Rosemary, from Westhill Alpacas. We have been choosing the best fleeces from both of our herds and combining them to have them processed together producing an elite spun product which we are busy knitting. We are waiting for our next shade to arrive back from the mill to add to the light grey and cream we already have.

I was just about to cast off a scarf the other evening when Rosemary emailed to say that she had an order for an extra long scarf. Sorted. I just carried on knitting and thought I was never getting to the end of it. It was finally finished last night for Rosemary to collect today. It was only after she had left with a selection of gloves, hats and scarves that I realised that although we had drank a couple of cups of coffee I had forgotten to get the biscuit tin out. Honestly, call myself an alpaca farmer? That is lesson number one. Always get out a tin of biscuits when you have visitors.

We did manage to get around and have a look at the girls and this years cria. The problem is that the bio-security we have in operation is difficult at the moment. The disinfectant foot baths we have at every paddock gate are still frozen and Rosemary could only get her foot in about an inch. We both managed to have a bit of a moan about how difficult it has been doing the paddock cleaning when the poo is frozen to the ground.

I got a brilliant idea while we had the freezing days and got Si to bag up the poo to put against the water pipes that are above ground to prevent them freezing. The next day I was expecting running water but he came back from the tap to tell me that they had still frozen and so had the three bags of poo. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

The Waiting Game

2010-11-05T23:47:00.000Z

I haven't blogged because I thought I would wait until we had the last two cria on the ground but we are on day 388 and still no sign. We called our vet out earlier in the week to scan the pregnant girls as they were both still spitting off and looked pregnant but we had decided that they couldn't possibly be any longer, but in the case of Rosie we were wrong. JJ (our vet) found a cria with a strong heartbeat but also said that it didn't look as though she was ready to birth within the next week so I am still on cria watch. It had better be a pink one after waiting this long. I actually thought that I had put the mating date in the computer incorrectly so telephoned the owner of the stud we had mated her to and double checked the date. She is obviously going for some kind of a record. We had a long discussion about conception in alpacas and about how it is still a bit of a mystery as to how long after mating conception occurs but I was more fascinated about how long sperm could stay alive. I know it has been a strange year for alpaca pregnancies but this is really getting ridiculous now.

We have been enjoying this years crop of cria though, their fleeces look fantastic and we have already started to plan who to breed them to in the future. We let them out of their paddock during the day so that they can free range, well, they say a change is as good as a rest.

Delilah, whose sire is Samson who resides at Wellground Alpaca Stud and her dam is Hemiccoyo Cricket. Her background includes Ruffo and Hemmingway and doesn't she know it?

Penny Lane lying down in the foreground and Exhibition is trying to coax her to play. Carrie is almost hidden in the background but the three of them love pronking and charging around together all day.

Tilly helps with the chores during the day so the alpacas are used to her. They just think she's an alpaca whose legs have been chopped off. Cherrybomb still looking pregnant but is actually empty. I was really looking forward to seeing what she produced.

Penny Lane is Wellground Juno's 2010 production. I know we shouldn't have favourites but she is a delight. She is full of mischief and if she wants the dustbath when another girl is in it she will bite their ears until they move. As soon as she sees Tilly she comes across to kiss her.

Carrie is proof that you can use 'Alpaca Royalty' bloodlines but you still can't make them behave like ladies. She takes great delight in rolling in the poo pile and it then takes ages to catch her to pick it off.

Si has been building the walls to the barn and it is now a mad rush to get it finished before the weather gets really bad, especially now that we are having a really late birth. I must admit he has been doing amazingly well for an accountant, even if it is slow going but there are so many other things to be done, like spit offs, toe nail trimming and stocking up the animal's hay.

The weather has been absolutely glorious for November and we have been working outside without coats on as it has been so warm, but I think that is about to change over the next week or so and the grass may stop growing. We have been lucky in that respect as the alpacas have not been eating so much hay.

Winner Takes It All

2010-09-19T23:56:00.001+01:00

Ok, maybe not all but a lot more than we were hoping for. Yesterday was the inaugural GWR Fleece Show and we couldn't attend because we are still waiting for Cherrybomb to produce her first cria and she seems to be in no hurry. We had entered fleeces but didn't get our hopes up as we knew that they were going to be up against some top quality animals and the judge was to be Dominic Lane who must have seen some of the best fleeces produced in the world. In the middle of the afternoon my phone rang and it was Rosemary from Westhill Alpacas who was helping to run the show and she just had a quick few seconds to tell me that we had got a 1st and a place but she didn't know which classes and had to get off the phone to get back to collecting fleeces for Dominic to judge. We were over the moon as that was much more than we were expecting.

We had even better news in the evening when Rosemary phoned again once she got home. We had actually got a 1st, a 2nd plus two 5ths and a highly commended. The highly commended was for Cherrybomb's fleece and what completely amazed me was that she said that Dominic had mentioned Cherrybomb had had a nutrition problem at some time in the year. He was absolutely right. During the really bad weather this winter I had noticed that she wasn't feeding at the troughs with the other girls and it took some coaxing to get her to feed. She now insists on being fed by hand. We are particularly pleased because we have got prizes for animals that we have bred ourselves so it proves that we are heading in the right direction.

You can now see picture of our multi prize winning herd. It feels so good to type that.

Penny will rest her head anywhere, here it is resting on Carrie's back

Five of this year's cria with a couple of their prizewinning mothers

Penny again, she's not old enough to eat hay yet so has taken to wearing it instead and Exhibition is quite happy to eat it off her.

It's Neat and it's Sweet

2010-09-16T23:54:00.000+01:00

It's been a really enjoyable time here with all the new babies running around and with still two to arrive it's a nervous time.

Asparagus Now has barely stopped running since hitting the ground.

We're (I'm) confined to barracks at the moment watching the pregnant girls but they don't really seem to be in any hurry. I have been spending the time knitting frantically hence the title of this blog. Only avid Muppets fans will recognise it as being from The Doozer Knitting Song but that line seemed appropriate for a pic of Asparagus Now.

We had a stall at a show a few weeks ago and sales of joint Westhill Alpacas and our own products sold so well that Rosemary and I have been knitting frantically to replenish stocks for the next show in three weeks time, we actually got down to only one pair of gloves left. It's good that people are keen to snap up alpaca products recognising the quality of the yarn, there have been so many compliments on our knitwear. Rosemary has also suggested roping in her mum and mother-in-law and Si needs to watch out or I will be teaching him to knit too , but I'm not sure I have the patience or time.

The fleeces have all been prepared for the GWR Show and delivered. I was only allowed to help skirt the first fleece and then Si told me to get back to the knitting or we would only have a handful of fleece left. I think the fact that I was trying to pick every small piece of hay out with a pair of tweezers got on his nerves a bit. I did try not to interfere but couldn't resist walking past a few times and just picking out a few pieces that he seemed to have missed. I'm disappointed that we may not be able to attend the GWR Show because of waiting for the safe delivery of the next cria.

Another highlight of the day was a visit from MGB from M and M Alpacas. They brought Hallmark and Ebony across for dates with Neema and Halo. They also had a fleece check of the new cria and reckon we have four really good females so far. It seems ages since we have seen them and we had loads to catch up on but at least winter will give us more freedom to visit each other, unless we get another one like last year when just breaking the ice on the water troughs seemed like a full time job.

In My Ears and In My Eyes

2010-09-08T00:39:00.000+01:00

We've had so many problems trying to blog this past week, we've scanned the computer for viruses, cleaned up the hard-drive and finally we have been able to upload pics.

First we have Asparagus Now, named after one of our favourite young bands in Liverpool. He was born last Tuesday. Si had checked all the girls when he fed them and a couple of hours later I was washing up in the kitchen when I looked out of the window and saw a cria charging round the paddock. We ran straight over, by the time we got over there he was at the milk bar. He is the fastest cria we have ever had, even Si had difficulty catching him to spray his navel. We're assuming he hadn't been out long as the placenta hadn't been passed. He's doing really well but it was a shock as he wasn't due until the 18th of this month.

Asparagus Now

Penny Lane

Cherrybomb welcoming Penny into the world

I got up at first light this morning to check the remaining pregnant girls and nothing seemed to be happening so I went back to bed for a couple of hours. We got up again at 8 and Si went through to make coffee while I made the bed. I looked out of the bedroom window and thought I counted an extra cria in the paddock so dashed through to the living room to get a better look. Si said that I had miscounted and sure enough he was right. I was drinking my coffee and watching through the window while Si went out to feed all the animals and the next thing I knew my mobile was ringing, it was Si. I had been right, there was an extra cria in the paddock, it was just that her mother was in front of it when viewed from the living room. She is a few days early and really small but perfectly formed. She seemed cold and was shaking so we put a coat on her once we had towelled her dry. We had to move the other alpacas out of the paddock to give her some time alone with her mum, even all the cria were trying to get her up before she was ready. She is still slightly wobbly on her legs this evening but has been trying to have a play with the other cria.

I'm hoping Cherrybomb will have her cria tomorrow as it looks as though it has dropped today and she is bulging a bit at the back. She's also really fed up and keeps turning her back on me as though it's my fault she feels so bad.

Note to Rosemary - the title is from Penny Lane by The Beatles

Why does it always rain on me?

2010-08-28T23:42:00.001+01:00

Not a lot has been happening for the past couple of weeks, it's been either too misty or too wet to take any photographs but at least the grass has started to grow again, also OD and her boyfriend have been staying for the past week so we've been sitting chatting and playing computer games of an evening. Laura can't believe how much it rains down here as everytime she comes down it pours the whole time. She reads the blog when we're practically begging for rain and typically the weather forecast now shows that now she has gone back to Liverpool there is no rain for the next week.

Exhibition showing her best side

Temple looking as though she has a piece of hay stuck up her nose

We've just been enjoying watching the babies when it has been clear enough and waiting for the next lot of cria due later in September. Yesterday when I was doing the evening feeds I noticed that Cherrybomb looked slightly red in one of her eyes, she has been prone to eye infections, so bathed it with cold tea. This morning it had clouded over so we telephoned for the vet and luckily it is only another infection, I must admit that I thought it looked like a cataract, our vet gave her an injection straight into her eyelid of antibiotic while I chickened out and looked the other way. We now have to put in Orbenin for the next couple of days.

We spent the afternoon disinfecting water buckets and feeders then doing some pedicures on the alpacas. It will be the goats turn tomorrow. It does seem that the white alpacas have faster growing nails than the darker colours.

Chewing On A Piece Of Grass

2010-08-16T00:29:00.000+01:00

We've had a really busy few days again. Si has been doing more groundwork on his time off and on Saturday we attended a show with Carl and Sam from Westhill Alpacas. It was a really enjoyable day and Rosemary's knitwear was admired by a lot of people and we sold quite a few pieces along with balls of wool.

Exhibition copying her mum, Larraluh

The cria have now learnt to pronk properly and it is lovely to watch their dancing of an evening when they are supposed to be settling down for the night.

Today has been spent doing spit offs and another mating with Cooper, this time with Larraluh. Cooper took so long this time that I think that Larra was mentally decorating the paddock. Unfortunately, Halo went down next to the pen where the mating was taking place so it looks as though she is now open but it could just be her being hormonal. She was actually due to give birth next month and we were really looking forward to seeing what she would produce as it would have been her first cria. She still looks pregnant but that may well be wishful thinking on our part so we will just have to wait and see. All the girls that Cooper has mated with have spat off though and now that we have our own top quality stud working it isn't such a tragedy for the future years as it will be easy to just put him back to the female. Next year we are hoping that we have another stud male working with completely different bloodlines.

Reach For The Stars

2010-08-09T22:37:00.000+01:00

Exhibition's ears are really improving now and are straightening out without any intervention. They still bounce a bit when she runs but most of the time they are pointing upwards. We did want to check her teeth but we couldn't catch her as she was having so much fun with Delilah, Timothy and Carrie.

Si did the paddock cleaning this morning while I caught up on some paperwork. MY alpacas don't sleep at night they just stand there pooing. We then did some spit-offs on the girls that Cooper had mated. HIS alpaca is brilliant as they all spat off. We then let him mate Chance, it was really a few days earlier than we would have liked but she kept kushing next to the fence nearest to him so we thought we should maybe take our lead from her. Oh Boy, he's noisy. It must have sounded as though we were trying to kill an alpaca.

Neema is due to give birth later this month but I'm not so sure that she has held her pregnancy. We tried ballottement on her and couldn't detect anything but that may be down to inexperience. She had been scanned as pregnant earlier this year but it looks as though it could be a late absorption but we have heard of other people this year who have thought their animals weren't pregnant and then they gave birth so we are still watching her closely, just in case.

Super Furry Animals

2010-08-05T23:08:00.000+01:00

We managed a day out today. This meant that we had to dash around doing the morning chores first, then get changed. I got to the car and then remembered I had left the camera on the table. I ran back in to grab it as we were going over to Rosemary's and I wanted a few shots of her new cria. We had to go to Sherbourne first to pick up a new floor kit for the horse box as we couldn't get one locally. We managed to get lost on the way but this is about par for the course.

As soon as we met up we started chatting and making plans for the future, in fact Si reckons we didn't stop all the time we were there. He left us to it for a while and talked about computer games with Sam. After coffee we went across the road to meet a few old friends along with the new cria. Rosemary has the most cuddly, cutest alpacas in the whole wide world. As soon as we went into the paddock, Rosemary armed with a bottle for Greeves, Greeves came over obviously expecting to be fed. We took the opportunity to have a good look at him and we were impressed with the quality, it looks as though they could have a future herdsire there. I was so happy to meet up with her girls again and a few of them came straight over for a kiss. When we went into the next paddock Bert came over, she loves to be stroked and fussed over and once she had the three of us paying her the attention she thought she deserved she sat down so we all got on the ground to make it easier to stroke her. The only problem was once we walked away to go and have a look at the boys she attempted to follow us for more attention. We were so enamoured of all this alpaca attention we forgot to take the camera out of my bag but Sam was standing by with a very impressive camera round his neck which he pointed to us on occasion so I am sure they have put the photos on their blog http://www.westhillalpacas.blogspot.com/ you will have to click on the link to see them.

We went back to the house to compare knitwear and plan what we were going to make next and I stood admiring the views from Ibberton Hill while drinking another coffee. I don't know where the time went because it was soon time for Rosemary to take another bottle to Greeves. We had to leave to get back to our own animals as we wanted to do some more preventative treatments and the never ending paddock cleaning. A day well spent and the best thing of all, Rosemary gave me a list.

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

2010-08-05T00:26:00.001+01:00

This morning we woke up to the promised and much missed rain. We are promised more for later in the week so hopefully this will kick start the grass into growing again.

I think the cria have been planning to scare us and this morning they seemed to be taking it in turns to pretend to be dead and I kept getting soaked going out to check on them.

Exhibition's ears are continuing to improve but everytime I pointed the camera in her direction she tucked her head back under Larra to feed. She should soon catch up with the others in her weight gain.

Exhibition and Larra

Delilah

Carrie (she won't pose for the camera either, she just wants to see what it is)

We had to put some antibiotic drops into Cherrybombs eyes tonight as she has developed a discharge in both of them and also putting some fly cream on her top knot to deter them from settling on her eyes.

Boys Will Be Boys

2010-08-04T00:49:00.000+01:00

We've been spending a lot of time just watching and getting to know our new babies so that we can tell if there is anything wrong with them (well that's the excuse we're using). I was messing around with the camera and filming Exhibition just for fun, it wasn't going to go on here but we thought it was really funny that the boys in the next paddock were obviously feeling left out and decided to run across in the background. It reminded us of the news reports when some idiot decides to play up behind the reporter. Timothy also had to get in on the action.

We've been working really hard today, working on the rest of the layout to include a new area for the pigs and a paddock for the goats. Si has been laying pipes in the trenches which Ollie and I are supposed to fill in tomorrow while he is away doing hard sums.

We checked out the new cria and are really pleased with the quality of them. We can definitely see that we are improving year on year. Poor Delilah had her first injection of Lambivac today and I had to hold her while Si stabbed the needle in. It's always a good excuse for a cuddle and I love rubbing my face into her neck, the softness is incredible but Si thinks that the crimp is the most important point.

He then dragged me away from my babies to give the boys some preventative treatments. They aren't as cuddly but they behaved well which was a change for them.

We are now in desperate need of some rain as the paddocks are really starting to look yellow and are getting bare now; it doesn't seem that long ago that we were wanting it to dry up. We have loads of vegetables planted and I had forgotten to water them this evening so had to dash out at 11 tonight to give them a good soaking and then water all the tubs with flowers in the dark. I was actually sorry that I had planted them all in the spring. I was feeling really fed up with myself tonight though as I had decided to pull out some nettles that had grown around the field shelters, not the best idea when you are only wearing a t-shirt and shorts. I have arms and legs that are driving me wild with a delightful itchy red rash.

Prick Up Your Ears

2010-08-02T00:00:00.014+01:00

We've had another busy day watching the babies. Exhibition's ears are actually starting to improve slightly although it will probably take a few weeks to correct completely. We are sure that the other two girls are fawn now because Exhibition is such a dazzling white next to them. Poor Delilah seems to be plagued by flies around her face so I rubbed fly cream into her top knot to see if that would help. I don't know what it is about Chance and her daughters that the flies love so much but they seem to attract a lot more than the others.

Cooper obviously enjoyed his first mating yesterday and while we were trying to get Cricket into the catch pen to try with him today he actually leapt over the 4ft fence into the next paddock in an attempt to get to the empty girls. I said to Si that although he is getting down to business we won't know if he is actually working properly until we get the first spit-off. Si pointed out that Cooper seems perfectly willing to put in the hours though. It is amazing the change in him the past few days, he has gone from being a little wimp wanting to play with the babies to being quite masterful. He pushed Cricket to the ground and jumped straight on and the noise out of him was horrendous.

Getting Down and Dirty

2010-07-31T23:42:00.000+01:00

We've really had a fantastic week.

Two beautiful cria, both of them girls and finally Cooper has decided he's really grown up now. Until yesterday all he's wanted to do is play with the babies through the fence but we noticed that he had started to take an interest in the empty females that we had kept putting next to him to see if he would make any attempt to get at them. Last night we realised that he had started to show an interest in Cricket and she sat down next to him with just a fence between them and he looked as though he wanted to vault over. Today we put him with Mimi and he just shoved her down to the ground and mounted her. I did think that because it was his first time it would be all over in 5 minutes and he would then light a cigarette or something but no, he seemed to carry on for ever. I got bored after 30 minutes and went to clean the paddocks but Si sat there with the camera like a proud father.

I am more interested in the results of the matings. I love having the cria running around, it really is what this business is all about. We had a really good look at Exhibition today and are really pleased with her fleece and can't wait for the opinion of Carl, our shearer. He is much more experienced than us at checking out the fleeces having seen a lot more of them. Even though Exhibition looks as though she is probably premature because of the lack of teeth and her floppy ears she has been running around nearly all day, in fact even when the other babies had settled down for the night she was still charging round the paddock. She really is hilarious with her ears bouncing up and down. Timothy can't keep up with her but he isn't the most elegant of alpacas, he really is only pet quality but he has a lovely nature. I said to Si today that he looks like a mix of Alan Carr and Giant Haystacks he is really careless and keeps running into the sides of the adult girls. He gets up such a speed but just doesn't seem able to stop.

Oh, I almost forgot, because we have no births due until the end of the month I was allowed past the farm gate. Nothing too exciting but I got to Mole Valley today for animal feed and more gates but at least it was a change. I was only allowed out for a couple of hours but come October I can go out whenever I want.

HELP!

2010-07-30T23:12:00.000+01:00

Well, it's been a day.

Larra had been checked at around 5am and then I went back to bed. Si woke me up again around 7am to say that nothing was happening and he was about to leave for the office. I got straight out of bed, just in case, I wasn't going to get caught out again. I looked straight out of the window at Larra and her tail was up and she looked as though she was straining but she was nowhere near the poo pile. I thought I'd make a cup of coffee and keep watching. I had had a couple of sips and nothing much was happening but there was something sticking out of her rear end and I thought I'd better go and have a closer look. I walked around to the paddock all the while watching this balloon sticking out of her. Once I was in with her she came straight towards me humming, which was really unusual for Larra, she normally acts as though she knows she is an elite alpaca and we are mere humans put here to give her pedicures and clean up the poo. There was just a head showing within this balloon with no movement at all. I thought I was going to have to cope with a stillbirth which was particularly poignant as she had given birth prematurely, at night last year in a storm and the cria had died even though our vet worked on it for almost 2 hours. Poor Larra mourned her baby for over a week. Anyway, I decided that she was obviously asking for help so I had to do something no matter how scared I felt. I burst the bag and did a bit of tweeking of the feet and they soon appeared. I was so relieved as the cria then spluttered and sneezed and more of the legs appeared. I then stood back to leave her to it.

Larra obviously thought that this would be good time to take a break after this and sat down so I decided to go and finish my coffee while she had a rest. I stared out of the window watching her and she was having such strong contractions that I could see her whole body clench. I was actually holding my breath during each one then urging her to stand up to let gravity help. It was only when Ollie told me that she couldn't hear me through the window that I realised I had been telling her to push during each contraction.

As soon as the cria had hit the ground I ran over again with a towel and teramycin but I was still shaking so much that I sprayed the grass and its front leg. Ollie had to take over and told me that I had missed the navel completely. Larra is so pleased with her new baby that she has been sniffing and kissing it all day, it has been really lovely to watch. Once again I forgot to check the sex of the cria and had to go back to lift its tail to check. Another girl. Her ears are floppy and she has no teeth yet which are pointers of a premature birth which is a bit strange as it is 347 days since Larra was mated.

I got Si to phone Rob at Wellground Alpaca Stud this evening just to check that it was ok to leave its ears because the only advice I could find on t'internet was to tie tampons to them to support them but it actually looks really cute when she runs as they bounce up and down. We have decided to call her Exhibition as Larra's first daughter we named Halo after one of our favourite bands who have now changed their name to Exhibition. Mother and baby are both doing fine but I am still in a bit of a state of shock and in serious need of a large G and T.

Note to Darling Daughter, if you want children then please adopt them.

This is a picture of Carrie that Rob requested, He wanted to see her dry.

Out of the four births we have had so far our girls have produced one boy and three girls and we would really like to keep the same ratio for the rest of the births this year.

Carrie Baby

2010-07-28T23:22:00.000+01:00

Finally one of our overdue girls has given up her baby. I checked Chance and Larra over first thing this morning and thought this was going to be another day with nothing happening on the birthing front. After I had fed all the animals and topped up their water containers I decided to come back indoors to do some chores here. As soon as I had started on the kitchen Chance must have decided that it would be a good time to drop her cria with no interference from me. I looked out of the window and there on the ground was a small wet cria so I ran to the barn to grab a clean towel and teramycin. Ollie came over to help and did the drying while I tried to keep the flies away. He sprayed her navel and Chance was quite happy to stand by watching so I took the opportunity to spray her with Naff Off but decided against spraying the cria in case Chance then rejected her. Chance dropped the placenta almost straight away and I checked it over then picked it up in a carrier bag to go into the incinerator. It was only when we decided to leave mother and baby alone to bond that we realised that we hadn't even checked what sex it was. It was another girl. Chance has already given us 2 females and I love her as she comes over to give me kisses. I had already said to Si that we should really keep her for life if she produces another girl and he just laughed at the time. Today when he telephoned from the office he said 'So we're keeping her then'. I just thought I'd put that in writing in case he ever thinks about selling her.

She looked absolutely nothing when she was still wet but once she had dried out she seemed to double in size. Her fleece is so dense, she also a lovely cream colour at the moment but I am sure that will soon change over the next few days once she starts to play in the dust/mud baths with the other babies. Her sire is Lionheart who resides at Wellground Alpaca Stud and I have spent the evening on the internet trying to find a suitable name for her but it appears that Richard the Lionheart had no legitimate children so that idea went out of the window. The last gig we went to was Jimmy Carr so we have carried on the gig theme and called her Carrie, it is also the name of a song so the music theme continues.

Temple, the darkest one above, was Chance's cria from last year and as soon as she saw the new cria feeding seemed to get a memory jolt and rushed over to join in so we had to put her into another paddock for the afternoon.

Larra went over to have a good look at the new cria and immediately started to hum. I think she was trying to tell us that she'd have that one rather than go through the birthing process herself but we're hoping that jealousy will prompt her to finally drop her cria tomorrow. This is another one we're excited about as the sire is Wellground Close Encounter and I will be just as pleased if this is a boy. We would love a future sire with his bloodline.

Love Me Chase Me

2010-07-22T00:49:00.000+01:00

The photographs aren't great quality but they show the essence of Delilah. She is a little terror. Her favourite pastime is pouncing on Timothy until he turns and chases her. She will happily spend hours racing around the paddock. She is also responsible for our high mobile telephone bill this month. She is such fun to watch that if one of us sees her doing something we phone the other to look at her. She really is a delight to have around.

We should have had another couple of babies running around by now but even though the mothers look fit to burst they are not letting go. Chance's belly is absolutely huge and it is so low now that if she doesn't give birth soon it will be touching the ground. Larra has been bagged up for over a week and is looking really fed up with it all. I don't suppose I am helping much by following them around trying to look under their tails to see if anything is happening. The flies are annoying all of us. We have spent a fortune the past couple of years on various sprays and potions but nothing seems to work. The girls aren't keen on being sprayed a couple of times a day and it does seem a waste of time when it isn't keeping the flying pests off them. If anybody has found anything that does actually work then we would be really grateful for advice. We even resorted to listerine last year on the advice of a lady in the chemist who uses it on her horses. If we put any more garlic in their feed they will probably refuse to eat and lets face it, they don't have the sweetest breath at the best of times.

Si is off work this week to get on with more digging and stuff around the farm, I look at it more as community service to pay for his criminal act as described in the previous blog. He has been busy burying water pipes in preparation for a water supply to the barn and then hopefully there will be some landscaping done near the gate.

On The Run

2010-07-10T00:07:00.000+01:00

Delilah in her favourite place with her mum

All the pregnant girls queueing up for the mudbath

Well, it's been quite an exciting time here between the normal chores like poo picking, feeding, mowing etc

Yesterday Si was riding around cutting the grass when the only car key fell out of his pocket and got chopped to pieces by the mower. He then expected Ollie and I to help find the pieces. We found the plastic bits but the part we needed to start the car had completely disappeared. This morning Si had to phone Landrover who couriered a blank to our local garage which is about a three miles away. He had to walk there once he had the phone call to say it had arrived; he then had to get into Exeter which is 25 miles away to get it cut. There is a local bus service, it's on Thursday around 10.30am I think. He managed to hitch a lift into our nearest town which is 5 miles away to get a train to Exeter and then reversed the journey. He now has to do silly things with the car as the alarm goes off when he uses the key but there is a more complicated thing that has to be done with the key to be able to use it automatically. We have to stand for 5 minutes after he turns the key in a set pattern in the door before it can be opened. He'll never be able to remember the set pattern as the following story will show.

I got a telephone call this morning from the local police station asking if we owned a car with a certain registration number. I said yes even though I don't have a clue what our registration is. I wasn't too worried as I knew it hadn't been stolen as there wasn't a useable key for it and I could see the car on the drive across the paddocks. Apparently somebody had driven away from the local garage yesterday without paying for the petrol they had pumped. Yep, it was Si. He had filled a can to put in the lawnmower and then just come straight back to use it. So I am now living with a master criminal. This seems to be a common occurrence as the policeman was really nice about it and just asked us to pop back to the garage to pay. I then had to explain why we couldn't, but Si phoned the garage to apologize and paid by card.

Oh You Are A Mucky Kid

2010-07-05T00:14:00.000+01:00

Well we have waited and Delilah is undoubtedly light fawn, now we know we can register her with BAS. I'm not great at judging cria fleeces this young but I have a feeling this is going to be our best animal not just born here but out of all our alpacas including the imports. A week old and I'm already thinking about her first mating next year to improve still further. It's a pity she is so dirty but Irene has been making mud baths for her to roll in to keep cool and she has been taking full advantage of it.

The recent weather has been great but it has meant I'm having to refill the water butt from the mains every two days. The grass isn't growing either but the docks are doing just fine but the stems are just flowering and seeding without going to the effort of leaves.

Timothy is really growing now, so much so that he is trying it on with Mimi. She is going down next to the fence with Merlin on the other side so Timothy is jumping on, if only Cooper would show the same interest. He is more interested in playing with his new little sister.

Why, Why, Why ....

2010-06-28T00:10:00.000+01:00

We haven't blogged because it gets a bit repetitive reporting that we've been watering the animals to keep them cool and poo picking. We have been outside until late evening and have been too tired to even speak to each other when we get in. It has been so long since we have had any rain that all the water butts are empty and we have had to haul the water from the house. The alpacas have been drinking it faster than we can fill their containers.

We did manage to visit Rosemary and Carl over at Westhill Alpacas a couple of weeks ago and that was fun, we compared knitting and Rosemary gave me a list (I love lists) so I have slowly been working through that when I have the time. They came to visit yesterday so we actually had a relaxing few hours chatting and planning.

Finally, today we can announce we have a cria. We have been getting jealous reading about everybody else's crias but finally we have had our second birth. Cricket (one of our star girls with Ruffo and Hemingway in her background) gave birth to a female cria with the most amazing blood line. Her sire is Samson and we don't know what Rob and Les at Wellground have been putting in the water this year but he does seem to be throwing females after a run on males last year. No name has been decided for definite yet but given her sire it may be Delilah. She may be light fawn or it could just be that she was quick to the dust bath after her first couple of feeds. She was also bang on her due date at 335 days, if only they were all that reliable.

The Course of True Love Never Runs Smooth

2010-06-09T23:57:00.000+01:00

I know, I know. It's been a while since we blogged.

We've been rushed off our feet recently. We played host to the Westhill boys for the rest of the shearing last weekend and I have to say they have done a cracking job, especially considering they are relatively new to it. The blankets that are to go to the GWR fleece show in September hav been bagged up carefully ready to take to Wellground. We are hoping to go in person but we have checked and we have two births due that day and three the week before. At the same time we have taken some samples for analysis, this is to help us with our breeding program.

We have been spending the long days and nights tackling the docks and buttercups with a combination of Grazon 90 and the ride-on mower. Some nights only finishing when the light completely goes at around 10pm. However we seem to have particularly sneaky buttercups that are chosing to stay just half an inch tall to avoid the chop.

All the alpacas seem well and the pregnant females are growing nicely. Cricket is the first due to birth at the end of the month and we actually watched her cria moving this evening, it looked as if it was rolling over the way her stomach moved. We are still having no luck with Cooper, he probably isn't ready yet but we keep introducing him to Mimi and they just take one look at each other then carry on grazing. How many meals out together are this pair going to have before they get down to business?

The vegetable beds are also coming on a treat, we just need to remember what we've planted, I suppose we'll find out in a few months.

Spa Day

2010-05-23T00:12:00.002+01:00

The young master shows the older apprentice what to do

We are so grateful to Rosemary of Westhill Alpacas for lending us her two men today. They arrived this morning, set up all their equipment and set to giving our alpacas the full treatment. They have been coiffured, pedicured along with dental treatment and injections. It has been really hot here today and we (well, when I say we I really mean them) managed to do it in the shade in the barn which had a nice cool breeze blowing through it. I don't think Carl and Sam noticed though because they were so busy.

The past couple of days seem to have rushed by, I think the time is vanishing because it seems to be spent filling up water containers for the animals and then their paddling pools too. Now that all the boys have been sheared they will feel a lot cooler and will drink less water. When they were put back in their paddocks they didn't stay together as a herd, they were spread all over the paddock; I think that they didn't recognize each other so were a bit wary. As they have been injected and also had their preventative liver fluke treatment they will have to be moved onto clean pasture tomorrow and then poo samples collected to take to the vet for analysis.

You're A Big Boy Now

2010-05-20T23:36:00.005+01:00

Hasn't Timothy grown?

Timothy with his two babysitters, Mimi and Temple.

We're hoping to solve the Dock problem by training Sweetheart to eat them

Cricket gave us a bit of a scare this morning. She seemed to be taking herself off on her own and then spending a lot of time at the poo pile. She's not due until late June so we have been watching her closely all day. We even spent some time lying on the ground in the paddock trying to see her udders and then following her around trying to check out her back end whenever she lifted her tail. No clues at all so we decided that she must just have been hot and put out a paddling pool full of water for her to cool down. She totally ignored this and kept rolling in the dust bath but by this evening she had settled down completely but it means getting up at first light tomorrow just in case.

Si topped one of the paddocks that he had sprayed last week and we are pleased to notice that all the docks and buttercups he has sprayed over the past few days have now started to wilt. Sweetheart has been eating the docks in his paddock but he's only little and I think they are growing much faster than he'd ever be able to digest them but at least he's trying to help. We enquired about Lime when we were last at Mole Valley and are going to start doing that to the paddocks when we have more chance of rain. We are hoping that if we try to neutralize the PH of the soil it may help to combat the creeping buttercups. In some of the paddocks it looks as though there are more buttercups than grass so that means we'll have to reseed too.

We have shearing on Saturday so I thought I would make a contribution to animal welfare this evening and have trimmed Tilly so that she will be cooler too. I think I have overdone it slightly as her head now looks huge in comparison to her body. I will have to neaten her up tomorrow night with the clippers and then I have some lovely scented dog shampoo to bath her in. She will probably only stay clean for the evening as she loves to roll in alpaca poo. She's definitely no lady.

Boys, Boys, Boys

2010-05-19T00:19:00.000+01:00

Junior getting a close look at the camera

Lear - I always want to cuddle him

The boys sitting around while I clean up after them

No change there then

After the warning from Rob at Wellground about the dangers of Cuckoo Pint we had to search for the one I had seen somewhere last year. Once found, Si took a break from spraying the docks and buttercups to attack that one. Well, they say a change is as good as a rest. We're beginning to feel as though the docks are really winning. He's out there spraying every day, even coming in from the hard sums and declaring war until it goes dark.

I must admit that I've been really slow at doing the paddock cleaning at the moment and I spent some time just sitting on the grass watching the boys. It's easier to clean the paddocks myself as I have been using what I collect in the raised beds, troughs and pots that I have been planting up. When Si was collecting the waste he accused me of being extravagant with it. It's not as if we're ever going to run out. I can safely give him a written guarantee of that.

The weather is supposed to stay really warm and dry for the foreseeable future with no rain on the horizon so I have been saving bath water to water all my bedding plants with of a morning.

Bacardi and Coke have been getting fed nettles that Si has been collecting for them by the barrow load. It's like giving DD a cream cake. They squeak and dance around while they are eating them.

The girls are all getting bigger but we still have ages to go before our next birth. Everybody who has an alpaca due to birth seems to be going over their due dates so at this rate we could be birthing in winter instead of July and August.

Just a quick blog tonight

2010-05-16T23:32:00.002+01:00

Told you.

Si

It's Been A Long, Long Time

2010-05-16T00:25:00.000+01:00

Its been a while since we last blogged but it hasn't been all quiet here.

As you can see the roof is now on the barn and it's now down to me (Si, by the way) to build the walls.

Moving some of the old fence posts upset the locals. They had to scurry off and find a new home.

I hope they can line up like this when it is shearing time.

Since the last blog the barn men have completed the work they were employed to do, when they get started they really fly through it. I just have to find the time to do the walls, the yorkshire boards, the doors and water butts. No sweat, I've got a few hours spare tomorrow that should sort it. Before I can do that though I have to carry on spraying the docks, it is a constant battle and one we seem to be losing.

The new alpaca hurdles from Mole Valley have been put to good use to do Miss Humphreys' latest spit off which she passed and also to try Cooper on Mimi again, sadly he's still not really interested. Once he is we know she definitely will be. She's that kind of girl.

The girls in the picture were watching me move the hurdles so that it was easier to corral them into a new paddock right outside the park home which will be home for most of the next few months to make cria watch easier. They were soon charging around, not at all ladylike or what you would expect when they are close to giving birth. Cricket is due first in about six weeks and she is huge, so much so that she can't even kush; her legs just stick straight out the side when she sits down.

The new garden furniture will be going alongside the paddock too so that we have an excuse to sit around watching them.

Shearing should be starting next weekend. Our first undercover shearing, so it will be quite a luxury for them. At least if there is rain forecast for the day before we can put them inside to keep dry.

Irene is starting to feel better and finally went and did some paddock cleaning. They say a woman's work is never done, well certainly not at this rate anyway.

It's a Kind of Magic

2010-05-05T22:59:00.002+01:00

We've finally got all our forms downloaded and sent off for the brand new GWR Fleece and Fibre Show. It seems that everybody is talking about it, with the lack of safe halter shows to attend, and 'word on the street' is that 5th place is the one to aim for. We have heard that the rosette for 5th place is being very much sought after. If you haven't got your entries in you can get them here. I'm just hoping that we have got ours sent in in time.

Yesterday two men arrived and spent all day hammering and putting all the bits of wood for the barn together and left them laying on the ground.

Today we had to go out for a few hours for Ollie's interview at college and when we got back it had all changed and it actually looks as though we almost have a barn. It was pretty amazing when you think that it was just two men doing it, I think that they did it by magic. I must admit that we have been keeping our fingers crossed all week that the weather doesn't change to inclement again but we have been lucky so far.

In the foreground you can see the new drive. I love it because it changes colour according to the weather; today it has ranged from crushed strawberry through to damson. Well, that should confuse the men.

We popped into Mole Valley while we were in the area for the college interview and found out that they were delivering our alpaca hurdles and garden furniture today. They had telephoned to let me know but I had left my mobile on the breakfast bar. Si does keep explaining what mobile means but it doesn't help. We saw the lovely Dawn again and spent ages going through all the different disinfectants on her computer. She is really helpful and we finally came away with a huge container of blue stuff that should help keep us bio-secure.

I've been a bit under the weather for the past week or so and Si has been doing the paddock cleaning. He's finally got the bug for spotless paddocks. He was out there first thing this morning and when we got back this afternoon he decided that he should get out there again to do some more. This may all change if it rains.

Two New Arrivals

2010-05-03T00:12:00.000+01:00

The purlings and digger came for the barn.

Things keep arriving but men keep disappearing, I wonder if they think these are Bob The Builders friends and don't need drivers to get the work done.

How many of you remember the t-shirts of the eighties by Global Hypercolour that changed colour. Well our new drive appears to be made from the same stuff. It started off reddish (coral if you ask Irene) and when it gets wet turns grey/purple (mauve if you ask Irene). Why can't women accept if it isn't one of seven colours of the spectrum it isn't really a colour.

Irene's still not very well. It's very upsetting, I've had to do all of the paddock cleaning and perhaps worst of all, watering the flowers.

I did a spit-off with Ms Humphreys, sorry, Merlin did a spit off with Ms Humphreys. I just watched I swear. She passed with flying colours (ok just green), Irene is already counting down the days until next March.

I also gave Cooper another shot at Mimi, still not interested sadly but I'm sure he'll grow out of his awkward teenager stage soon.

Yesterday we bumped into some old friends in Tescos. Apparently their son was on Britains Got Talent last week as part of "Spellbound" a group of Acrobatic Gymnastics. We had seen it and were amazed, we new their son did this but didn't he was part of this team. It's ashame this is the only way they could get recognition. Doug (their son) and some of the others are gold medal winners at the European Championships and have been selected to attend the World Championships later in the year. Apparently they are currently favourites to win BGT, not bad eh! Check them out on youtube search for spellbound britain's got talent.

Finally, we have been sent a link to a new blog that has been set up recently. We've actually received it a few times, via Dianne Summers TB update group and on our facebook page. Go to http://www.tbinalpacas.blogspot.com/ . Very interesting it is, I hope it makes some people sit up and take note.