Llama karma and Alpaca Chatter

efficient or what

2012-01-30T08:13:00.000-08:00

Not that I am blowing my own trumpet here but I have to say I have achieved a lot today! starting with feeding up then a quick trip to Ashburton via Bovey Tracey with daughters car which needed two tyres for MOT,(why don't they think to check before sending it for testing) Then down to it ............... accounts for our branch of Devon Farms as it is the AGM tomorrow and I needed to get something on paper as I am the treasurer................ took a holiday cottage booking, received deposit and sent the confirmation, answered several e.mails, printed off confirmations and directions and sent them of to two llama walk customers, wrote some cheques out for some bills, updated the cottages website, filled in a form for a one day show this summer, had a cup of tea and now I am writing this, not a bad day.

We had a bit of snow last night, looks nice but I was glad it had rained and was disappearing fast this morning. The females who were all looking clean and fluffy yesterday are now damp and muddy except for Carla who is hogging the field shelter and obviously had not been outside until breakfast arrived!

Yesterday we had planned a day off, we were going to get up later, spend some leisurely time with the Alpacas, pick up a paper and have a lazy afternoon ................ didn't quite work out that way but it wasn't to bad, grandchildren and daughter turned up for a bit which was good, nice to see them but meant I had to take them home as car was being left ready for MOT. On the way home daughter said could we just call into Trago Mills (very large discount retail establishment, ) not somewhere I would chose to go on a Sunday which is also one of their sales days. Just wanted to pick up a rug for her front room. So that took about an hour by the time we had parked and got rug, then queued to pay, then took them home. The rest of the afternoon was good though, I got the old sewing machine out and mended a whole pile of stuff which has been sat around for ages waiting for the day I had time to do it! I also mad some cushion covers......... Cow print fabric which is quite fun, brown and white, brought in a rash moment of madness, they look good though. (don't think Steve agrees) Front room always resembles a bomb site when I get the sewing machine out! Off out to feed the animals and collect the eggs then once finished we had a nice roast dinner, our own pork, veg from garden, sat in front of TV for the rest of the evening, I was knitting though, can't just sit there doing nothing.
So nearly a whole day off.

Better get off now and get some dinner, Steve is feeding up this evening, it is horrible out there. grey cold and wet. Then I am going to get some invoices done!

Fantasic

2012-01-19T11:31:00.001-08:00

All I am going to say is I can now Drive, it has been very frustrating having the car there and not being able to use it. Off out tomorrow!

Decisions, Decisions.

2012-01-17T11:17:00.000-08:00

I have obviously got to much time on my hands at the moment because after spending the morning trying to sort out my car insurance, which is very time consuming and very fustrating.

Golden Nugget

Caliban

I then spent the afternoon looking at expected birth dates for our females and that got me thinking of which studs to use after said females had given birth. Poor things, most of them aren't due to give birth until late summer and I am already planning the next one. This year we used a couple of outside studs and I have one outstanding breeding already paid for.

The main decision is whether to use Caliban again, he has given us some lovely cria, especially Calico who is now at Pippin Alpacas or do we look for another stud male to bring in, then there is Golden Nugget who also has produced some lovely looking cria with great fleece. We have given young Atlas a couple of females this year so it will be interesting to see what he can do, he comes from my very favourite female 'Marietta' she has had 4 cria for us and her
first three boys all did well in the show ring, she had a female this year who will be shown this spring.
I am sure we will have may decisions over the next few months on this subject and what ever I decide now may well change several times before the females are ready.

I have done a lot of knitting over the last few weeks, tried out some new patterns and used some great beaded luxury yarns to trim our own Alpaca yarns but I think the most unusual request I have had was to knit a jumper for a Chihuahua, a very small one at that. I was amazed to find so many patterns on the internet for dog coats, I drew the line if knitting it in alpaca so brought some basic acrylic yarn, actually ended up knitting a dress with frills.......must get a photo with the dog modelling it!

Atlas

The other decision to be taken is which shows and fairs are we taking our stand to this summer, last year we did a lot of shows in August which were very good but hard work, we said that if we did them again we would not try to work as well, so we need to make a decision before we get too much work booked in and then I must get knitting!

Fluffy Alpacas are back

2012-01-15T15:56:00.000-08:00

Choc Ice in front of Tigerlily, Midnight and Lalique at back

At last the rain has stopped and we have had several days of crisp, sunny days, the mud has gone and we now have a field full of fluffy Alpacas. So with my super doper new camera I have tried to get some decent shots, only the Alpacas had different ideas and Choc Ice decided to take most of the hay rack with her!

Ivory in front of Lily and Olivia

All the cria are now back with the herd after being weaned and separated from their mums for 6 weeks. Lalique was the only one who tried to suckle from her mum (Marietta) but she was the youngest of the group, Marietta wasn't at all interested in that and sent her packing.
We had given the cria a few short lessons in Halter training before Christmas so yesterday with the help of some clients who had been on a llama walk we decide to give them a go to see if they remembered anything. The were all very good and we walked them around the garden and right up the lane to the top fields and back. So this year there shouldn't be a rush to get them ready for the first show.

Summer

My mission last year was to find a use for all our fleece, most has been processed into yarn, but the course stuff and even the stuff brushed up off the floor has now all gone. The final 4 bags were stuffed in the back of the shed so last weekend I had a trip to Paignton Zoo planned with Daughter and Grandchildren, so as the big cat keepers had used some of our fleece previously for enriching the lives of the tigers and lions, I gave them ring to see if they could use some more. So off we went with a bag of fleece each which we deposited at the entrance before spending a lovely day looking at the animals. Josh wanted to wait to see what they were going to do with the fleece but as they made a paper mache model of an Alpaca covered it with the fleece filled it with food and fed it to the tigers, I didn't think it was a good idea.

As I can't drive at the moment I am walking the two miles back from the field each morning, great opportunity to practice with the camera.

Dartmoor Pony

Lichen in the Hawthorn

Every morning there is something new to see, snowdrops starting to come into flower, even some Katkins, saw a deer in the field over the valley. I have to walk past the field where the trekking llamas are and they follow me along the other side of the hedge until we get to the corner where they can stand on the rocks to see over the hedge, so I got a shot of Merlin and Murphy, these to have really grown up now and Murphy is particularly handsome.

Murphy and Merlin

Last night we went to see Warhorse at the cinema, great film and some of it was filmed on Dartmoor quite near us so it was interesting to see if we could recognise the locations.

Today we went up to North Devon to visit Andy and Sue from Pippin Alpacas and the Alpacas they brought last year, they we all looking good and we helped out with some husbandry tasks. I was particularly interested in how the cria were growing and having a good fleece rummage. The lovely Calico's fleece was certainly impressive. We wish them all the best for future plans and their first cria due this summer.

What happened to my lovely clean fluffy Alpacas?

2012-01-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

Well I hope everyone enjoyed the festive holidays, now back to normal as far as normal goes.

I have had a very restful time since my operation, I have done some knitting, watch lots of TV, had friends round and spent some time playing with my Christmas pressie. I now have a very fancy new camera which is too clever for it's own good, so I now have no excuse for not taking lots of pictures.

Over the next few weeks whilst I can't drive I am hoping to update the websites for the Cottages, Llamas and Alpacas. I also have been told I need to put some animals up for sale on Alpaca Seller, so I will need some new pictures for that, but I think I may have to wait for a while as this is what I found on one of my first visits to the field since before Christmas.

Ivory Looking very grey and wet.

Tigerlily is in fact even worst.

Choc Ice obviously taken it to another level.

Even Demeter has participated in the activity.

Caramel and Laligue have embellished themselves with hay for an even more attractive look.

Even Blacks can have the look, this is Hebe sporting the muddy look.

Midnight on look out, "Go on she's not looking"

Marietta showing us how to get the best look.

I would really like some dry cold weather to get my fluffy Alpacas back. then my camera will come into it's own.

Peace and quiet return.

2011-12-26T03:50:00.000-08:00

Jazz our poorly llama seems to have got over whatever was troubling her, Steve went to feed up this morning and said that she came bounding over for her hard feed and then made for the freshly filled hay net.
I can't get out to do anything so I have to rely on Steve remembering to tell me what everyone is up to.

We have had a very noisy Christmas with lots of family here but today they have left to visit extended family and peace has returned although the house still has to recover from having two young boys here for several days, nothing is where it should be!

I am now going to try to work out how to use my super doper new camera, this may take a while!

Hope you all have a good time over the Christmas period.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-22T14:39:00.000-08:00

I would like to wish everyone a very Merry christmas and a Happy Prosperous New Year. I have really enjoyed reading everyones Bloggs, It is so interesting to hear how different people do things.

I haven't blogged for a while really because it is a very quite time of the year for us and there is only so much you can say about poo picking and general husbandry, but here is a quick update of what has been happening here.

We have weaned all of this years cria and decided to do it differently this year, instead of taking the cria away from the mums and putting them out of sight we took the mums away and leave the cria with the rest of the herd. This seemed to be less stressful for the cria and the mums didn't really notice that they were missing something when they saw the fresh grass in their new paddock.

It is very muddy here and getting across the chicken pen is a bit like ice skating, I can move the electric fence around except for the bit around the hen houses, so I have to hold onto the house to get around the back to collect the eggs. Cleaning out is interesting as you can imagine trying to push a wheelbarrow up a very muddy slope, Steve finds this very amusing to watch!

Every year we have a stall at the Christmas market in Widecombe and this year we were asked to take some animals to display next to the Christmas tree. What with all this mud our animals along with everyone else's are not the most attractive. So we thought we would take the most attractive ones which would be the weanlings, problem 1 they were not halter trained, problem 2 we needed to get them into the little grassy area at the back of the hall, problem 3 everything is so muddy not easy to get the trailer into some of our paddocks. So the weanlings are now all halter trained with varying degrees of success, star of the team is Caramel who seemed to know what to do the very first time she had a halter on, so using Caramel as trainer the other four girls were walked one at a time around the garden and up the lane. Lalique is pretty good but she has the same temperament as Caramel, being related. Choc Ice is so small I had to make more holes in the halter to get it to fit properly walks lovely as long as Caramel is in front, difficult if I am trying to walk two on my own, and Tigerlily is surprisingly good considering she is Lily's daughter and Lily is the most loopy, neurotic Alpaca in the world! Finally Ivory the oldest, biggest cria is totally useless, so glad she won't be in the show team next year, only reason we got her where we wanted her was she didn't want to be left behind on her own. So hopefully they will remember some of their training and will not take to much training before the shows next year.

The Market was very cold and pretty damp but we had a reasonable day and as usual lots of interest in the animals.

Today Jazz one of our Llamas was not very well, she was obviously in pain and reluctant to get up when approached which is unusual, she was bouncing around yesterday. So we took her temperature which was normal so probably not an infection, so it looked to me like it could be a colic or acidosis thing, so as she was in pain we called Richard our Vet who luckily for us was at home so not to far away. Anyway he gave her something for the pain and some anti spasm drug and said it was probably colic and if it was she would get better or if not it could be a twisted gut in which case she would not get better but he didn't think this was the case as her membranes were normal colour. Jazz seemed to have improved this afternoon so fingers crossed she will continue to improve. It is good to know that your own diagnosis's was right and by knowing your animals you can notice when something is not quite right.

I have finally finished knitting my Christmas presents, this year everyone is getting hand knits as I really don't like Christmas shopping and it gives me an excuse to knit different things.

My operation which was cancelled in November was re scheduled for December 16th and cancelled again has now been booked in for tomorrow, so after messing me about for months they have now ruined my Christmas. I should be home sometime on Christmas day, hopefully in time for lunch. We have all the family here for the day so at least Steve will not have to cook or wash up for that matter.

One of those days

2011-11-21T15:25:00.000-08:00

Today has been one of those day I find very frustrating. After my operation was canceled last week I have been waiting for them to ring me with another appointment. Firstly they promised I would know by Friday evening, then definitely on Monday, I hadn't heard by lunch time so I rang them...... answerphone, phone again, got secretary ....."I'm working on it and will definitely ring this afternoon".... well I am sure you can guess that I still haven't heard. So it seems I will have to wait in tomorrow as well, we have very patchy mobile phone signal around here and I don't what to miss the call (when it finally arrives) .
Obviously they consider that my time is not as important as theirs and i don't want to ring all my customers to rearrange work until I know when I will be going in.

The other frustrating thing today is .... and I would be hoping mad if I hadn't been waiting in anyway, I was waiting for a delivery which was promised sometime this afternoon............ it arrived at 7.45 following two phone calls to say he was lost! shame people have lost the ability to read a map because they have a Sat Nav in the cab.

On a more positive note I cleared out the bureau and the drawers, amazing how much clutter you can collect, I have a very tidy bureau now. I have also been knitting and getting the stock ready for Widecombe Village Market which is on Saturday. I have completed one hat and sewed up another so not a completely wasted day.

A bit of a ranting blog

2011-11-19T00:11:00.000-08:00

Well it is a quite time of the year for us now, Alpacas and Llamas all up to date with husbandry tasks, all the females that have been bred were spitting off when last checked and won't be checked again until spring as they would not be rebred anyway, so fingers crossed they all hold. Not wishing to wish the time away but we are really looking forward to seeing the results of some of our breedings next year. We decided to use some outside Studs this year as well as one of our own younger males, we will just have to wait and see.

I have been reading with interest other blogs about cria not growing, there seems to be a few this year, we have one who didn't put any wait on for weeks, wouldn't take a bottle, always under Mum who looked like she had enough milk, we gave up with the bottle and stood back and watched. The cria 'Choc Ice' who is now five months old was still only 13 kgs at 3 months is now 28 kgs and is running around with the rest of the herd. Not sure why she didn't grow, she is obviously smaller than the rest of the cria but she always felt solid and well covered and there didn't seem to be anything else wrong with her. Her mother was a maiden but she was very good right from the start and we saw Choc Ice suckle so I am sure she got the colostrum very early on. Who knows! these animals will always surprise you.

Now for the ranting bit!
It has been a bit of an odd week mainly because I was due to go into hospital on Friday so I had bee getting myself all geared up for it, rearranged work, stocked up the larder for Steve as I would be out of action for some weeks, arranged help for animals, cottages, grandchildren etc. I even tidied the house and sorted out the office. So Thursday came and I had finished my last job for about three months, fedd the animals for the last time and collected the eggs, got back into the car and looked at the phone to see I had a new voice message. The hospital had been try to ring me and in the end left a voice message (we intermittent mobile signal around here) They had canceled my operation ! now I was really upset about this, but it was to late to ring the secretary, I had to wait til the morning to find out that there was not enough beds. Now I could be waiting until after Christmas for a new date, to say I am not happy is a understatement, I had put my life on hold for three months which as it was winter was not too bad I could cope with that, but if the new date is going to be in the spring I won't be able to work or do anything during one of our busiest times. I do appreciate that it couldn't be helped if there were no beds available especially critical car beds then something has to go, just wish it hadn't been my operation. So not good I have to wait until Monday now to hear when the new date will be. In the meantime I have a whole weekend in front of me with nothing booked in as I shouldn't have been home so I am going to make the most of it and do what I like................now what shall I do!

Freezer full ready for winter

2011-10-28T11:16:00.000-07:00

I am determined not to get caught out again this winter, last year with all that snow and ice we ran out of milk and bread. So this year I have a good supply of both in the freezer which is OK until we sent the pigs in and I collected the meat from the butcher this morning and for good measure I brought half a lamb of one of our neighbours. Our freezer is now so full I have had to borrow some room in next doors!
I carefully wrote down our requirements for the butcher to pack the meat and somehow sausages packed in 8's, came back as one large bag of sausages, so I have spent the afternoon bagging them up. I asked for the small joints except for one leg which I wanted cut into two large joints ready for Christmas, I got one half pig cut into large joints. Not sure how clearer I could have made it, was it me or did they just not read it right!
This weekend I was going to do some baking but as there is no room left I won't be doing that instead I am going to move the Chicken pen onto some fresh ground,and tidy the veg garden. Oh yes there are three Cockerels which need dispatching, have to try and get them into the freezer somehow.
Winter is definitely on it's way the female Alpacas just about mug me for the feed in the mornings, they have plenty of fresh grass but there is not the goodness in it now. We have started to give the males and the llamas some concentrate again now and they are having plenty of hay.
I am busy knitting and spinning as I have so much I want to get finished before I can start my own Christmas pressies, I have decided that everyone is getting knitted gifts or Alpaca socks for Christmas as I really can not face going Christmas shopping. bah humbug, I really don't like that side of Christmas, it would be so much nicer if everyone made something which would be special to the person receiving it rather than just buying something which most of the time could be brought if wanted anyway.
Anyway back to the knitting whilst Steve is still working and we are having a late dinner. Guess what? Pork chops! we will be eating a lot of pork now.

Comings & Goings

2011-10-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since I have blogged, not because nothing has been happening in the depths of Dartmoor.
In fact there has been a lot happening here some of which has been very painful and upsetting which is one of the reasons I haven't felt like writing anything, some good things and some comings and goings.
Firstly Steve's mum passed away a few weeks ago and although not unexpected it is still very sad and we are going to miss her greatly. This will bring lots of changes over the next few months some of which may be challenging and it looks like buying the shed for a fleece workshop will have to go on hold for a while.
On the Alpaca front we had sold some females and their cria a couple of months ago and we had their new owners over for a day to do some husbandry training. We always like to know that our animals are going to go to people who know how to handle them. So as we had help we gave the whole of the female /cria group their Fasinex and an ADE shot, then we weighed them all. Very good hands on experience for their new owners. A couple of days later we delivered the girls and babes to their new home where I think they will be very comfortable. Sue and Andy of Pippin Alpaca were waiting for us when we arrived and the girls were let out into their new Paddock, I think they were so impressed with the lovely long grass that they didn't really notice where they were for a while. Ella, Bramble and Phoebe with their cria Salvador, Calico and Amber settled in immediately.

Ella is always the inquisitive one and was soon of to inspect the living arrangements closely followed by her Son Salvador, nice field shelter, plenty of hay, good grass, it's all good then! We had a message from Sue and Andy to say they were fine a couple of days later but I am always sad to see any of our animals go. We would like to wish Sue and Andy every success with their new venture .

I finally managed to get all my fleeces packed up and sent off to the mill after a bit of a trial with the courier company. We have sold most of our yarn to a London Knitwear designer this year so I have been agonising over which fleeces to put in to the mill and which to keep out for hand spinning. In the end I decided to send some extra fleece to the mill which will give me some yarn for me to use and to sell as well as the yarn going to the designer. We are also having some rovings mainly because I am lazy and don't like carding much. So at the moment I only have a couple of our courser fleeces and some legs and neck fleece left.

In between everything else I have bee knitting frantically to try to get some stock together for our Christmas Markets as well as some commissions. I seem to have some knitting stashed in my bag where ever I go now!

As we had sold the girls and especially Ella who was one of my favourites and possibly our best Black female, we decided to go and find ourselves another black to replace her. We had a good search around and found one we were interested in, better still she was due to give birth this year with a cria from one of our favourite stud males. So off to deepest Somerset to have a look, when we got there we found that although she was a lovely animal she wasn't quite what we were looking for and she wasn't pregnant. Whilst there we looked at a few other females and picked out another maiden who was ready to breed and also had the bloodlines we were looking for. We then looked at an older pregnant Dark Brown Female with a light fawn cria at foot.

The cria has a cracking fleece and is well built and her mum as a lovely soft handling fleece which is quite impressive for her age. So to cut a long story short we came away with three animals. Hebe who is black with a white splodge on her nose and topnot, Olivia, Dark Brown with her cria at foot who we have named Ivory. We collected them a few weeks ago as the two adults are now spitting off and we have had them in an isolation paddock before introducing them to the rest of the herd. Our herd is now looking a lot darker than before which is where we wanted to be.
That more or less brings us up to date, we have been doing all the usual poo picking, feeding and all the usual routine stuff.
Today We wormed all the females and their cria before moving them into a fresh paddock and the new girls joined them so there was a lot of sniffing and a bit of spitting before they settled down to eating the fresh grass. Just got the llamas to do now, which are a little more challenging.
Finally a few of this years cria.

Choc Ice & Lalique

Calico before she left for Pippin Alpacas

This years star and leader of the gang 'Caramel'

Thats all for now.

The Day Job

2011-09-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we spent the day at Widecombe fair, the day started very early in typical Widecombe fair Dartmoor drizzle. We loaded Lenny, Murphy, Merlin and Logan into the trailer and set off for the fair ground. There is a one way system around the lanes on fair day so we need to get to Widecombe before this came into play. Once set up we were surrounded by crowds for most of the day, lots of questions and the usual "they spit don't they" comments. Our knitwear, yarns and socks proved very popular and we had the most successful day to so far. We didn't have time to leave the stand apart form quick dashes to the refreshment tent for supplies. So we missed the Pantomime horse derby, Bale tossing and large straw bale rolling competitions. I did manage to catch a glimpse of the Grandsons in the Hill Pony Display though, Josh had a hugh grin on his face all through it and Charlie fell of twice but got back on his pony to a round of applause from the crowd.

As usual I forgot to take the camera, so no pictures again!

Today it was back to the day job

Thought I would share a few pictures of what we call work.

Steve and Merlin

Murphy and friend on Corndon tor

Break time

Don't look now but someone is creeping up on us!

Meet the locals

Amazing Views

Homeward Bound

Sometimes we have to remind ourselves we are at work!

Show season

2011-08-20T15:32:00.000-07:00

Its been a while since I updated the blog, not because I haven't any news but the days have whizzed by and every time I think I may get a few minutes to sit and write something I fall asleep. So here is a quick run down of what has been happening here.

Last blog 1st Aug
3rd August was the first of our craft drop in sessions held at our local village hall, we had a very good turn out and we will be holding the next one on the first Wednesday of September. We had spinners, knitters and weavers, picnic lunch and a good laugh.
We had also entered fleeces into the North Devon Show which was the same day and came away with two seconds and a fourth place.
4th, Honiton Show, very damp Alpacas, great show, a second and a fourth place, lots of chat and catch up with friends.
5th Work and Hospital appointment
6th Holiday cottage change overs, spit offs, weighing and general husbandry
7th Clients came to visit for a second time and select their starter herd, more about that later!
8th Work.
9th Widecombe fun day, a fun raiser on the green in the centre of Widecombe, we have been asked to attend for the past three years and we always say we will be their if the weather is OK, this is the first time we have got their. We took four Alpacas and there was lots of interest especially from the two coaches of spanish students who arrived quite early in the morning. All in all it was a very successful day, we sold some knitwear and socks, the church raised over £1000 which will help pay the oil bill for another year!
10th Work and set up for Okehampton Show
11th Okehampton Show, when we arrived early in the morning following a very stormy night we found Liz & Mike from Lakeham Alpacas trying to put the roof back on one of the Marquees, it had blown off during the night and a lot of the stock had got wet. Once we sorted out that little problem and got the stand set up, the weather improved and we had another successful day, lots of interest in Alpacas.
12th We took two females up to Inca Alpacas for a breeding to Jack of Spades, We took Charlie, my grandson with us for a day out. We were not sure what he would make of the actually breeding bit but shouldn't have worried, he told his friend the next day about his trip whilst his mother held her breath, he said ' we put Nanny's alpacas in the trailer, drove a long way, pressed the magic button ( which we now have worked out was the gate entry button) then their alpaca got on top of our alpaca and I played foot ball with their little boy' mother sighs big sigh of relief!
13th Holne Fete, another first for us, we were asked if we would attend as an attraction and we said we would go if we could put up the trade stand. Holne is just over the valley from us and has a great little pub The Church House Inn. We went over and set up late morning then went to the pub for lunch before the fete started at 2.30 pm. It was a proper village fete with races for the kids and bale tossing, tombola, raffle, a Pimms tent (very civilized) and their traditional completion 'Egg Tossing'! two rows of people standing opposite each other one trowing the egg to the other, drop or break your egg and you are disqualified, after each round one line step backwards two paces, the winner is the couple who throw the egg the most times with out dropping or breaking the egg. Strange but each village seems to have it's own traditions! We met a lot of our neigbours and lots of people who didn't know that there was Alpacas just over the other side of the Valley and several people who may be thinking of keeping Alpacas, lots of people who brought Alpaca socks! and some who brought yarn, so another good day!
14th Husbandry in the morning, llama walk in the afternoon, lovely day, had Cream Tea on top of Yar tor.
15th Work in the morning and a trip to Somerset to look at a replacement for Ella one of our black girls who we have reluctantly sold.
16th I had a dentist appointment then Liz and I went to Torquay to follow up a lead from Totnes show, a lady who was selling some spinning equipment, which we brought, a Spinning Wheel, Drum Carder and some other bits and bobs. Followed by Coffee at M&S and a trip to Mole Valley Farmers for Pig food etc.
17th Work
18th Chagford Show, this time as the weather forecast was not good we decided to set up in the morning which meant a very early start, we loaded the stand and stock into the discovery the night before to save some time. Arranged for my daughter to do the feeding so we could just load the Alpacas and go. It was not a good start we were down by the sheep pens, crammed in between tow marquees and it was raining and it was very quite until about 11am but by 5pm we had had a great day, we sold loads of UK Alpaca Socks and some knitwear, Liz and Mike sold lots of knitwear and took orders for more. It turned out to be the best show we have ever done. Already had a call from someone looking for Alpacas who is coming tomorrow!
19th Work and spit offs, the two girls we took to Inca are both spitting!
Today Change overs in the cottages, quick lunch before Steve and I headed off to Fibrefest which was at Bicton College, we walked in through the gate and there was Tom and Julie from Llamaland, so a long chat with them, followed by Blacklands Alpacas, Chas & Rachel from Classical Mile End, Colin Ottery, by which time it was getting late and I hadn't seen any of the stalls in the Marquees. Finally I got a look around brought some Alpaca tops and some new bobbins for my spinning wheel before sitting down for a cup of coffee overlooking the lake, such a lovely setting for a college. Got home made dinner and then remembered I needed to make scones for tomorrow!

So as you can see it has been a bit hectic, all our cria have arrived and are doing well, our breedings for next year are nearly complete, hay is in the barn. I am dreaming of a few days off to have a short break somewhere, just so we can recharge the batteries but I am not sure when we will have time!
We have people coming tomorrow morning to talk about starting with Alpacas and in the afternoon we have another llama walk.

I did take the camera to all the shows, didn't take any pictures!

Busy, Busy, Busy

2011-08-01T15:47:00.000-07:00

It has been a very hectic time here over the past week or two. The weather finally settled and we had an opportunity to cut and bale our hay, this is the first time we have cut our own hay we usually buy hay from Steve's brother which means transporting it everytime we need a bale, not ideal. So this year we rented a 7 acre field which we divided in two, grazed one part leaving about 4 acres to cut. The grass was cut a week last Sunday and we baled it on Friday, all 409 bales were in the barn by Saturday teatime and then it was straight onto getting Roger's hay in. The problem was it was Totnes show yesterday (Sunday) so I had to take all the stand and stock down to Totnes on Saturday evening to set up whilst Steve was hauling bales around. Mike and Liz from Lakeham Alpacas share a stand with us at some of the local shows so they were there to help set everything up.
I was up very early on Sunday morning to get down to the show field to finish setting up the stall, it was a lovely day, not very sunny but warm. There was lots of people around and we were in a very good position opposite the food tent, so we had a good crowd all day. We had our normal stock for sale, our own fleeces, yarns and knitwear, UK Alpaca socks and yarns, Teresa from Batsbrook Alpacas also had some very classy looking spectacle cases made from felted Alpaca fleece. This year we also had a display of fleece to yarn, showing the process that our fleeces go through to make our knitwear, this proved very popular. Liz was doing some knitting and I took along a spinning wheel, although I am not very good yet I was able to demonstrate how it is done.

Today it was raining so after feeding up we got back home and did some much needed office work, after lunch it was drier so we had a husbandry session. The girls and cria were all weighed, some cream administered where needed, all our blacks seem to have a bald patch on their nose, not sure why it is only them, but their fleece has started to come back through now. We did some spit offs, Bramble who had spat off three times previously was looking longingly over the gate at Caliban, which I thought was rather strange so we put her into the holding pen to test her again, she sat immediately which is a bit disappointing. Carla who had previously spat off a couple of times also sat so 4 out of six are still holding. Marietta's cria is now two weeks old so we will be planning a trip to Dorset with her and Ella next week, Ella has been desperately sitting next to the breeding pen waiting to be mated for weeks but we have been waiting for Marietta so we can take them both at the same time.
Finally we moved the Llama team back to the hay field, they had been moved out while the tractors were going in and out as they are so nosey they would have been in the way if we had left them in there. I love watching them when they go into a new field they look so elegant when they are pronking around the field. The two youngsters, Murphy and Merlin get so excited they charge around the field like race horses then slow down into a pronk.

I just wish I had the camera with me again!

Making hay

2011-07-23T14:53:00.000-07:00

The sun came out today and the decision was made to cut the hay, Steve's brother cut his fields then went straight on to cut our new rented field which is about 4 acres. We are just hoping now that the weather will hold for the next few days so we can get it turned, baled and collected in.

Our spinning course which was last Thursday was a great success, Jean field brought lots of different fibres for us to try our hands at, mohair, soya (didn't like that) wensleydale. We had a good lunch plenty of tea and coffee and lots of chat. I think we will be holding a Spinning group once a month during the winter.

I have been out of action for the past two days due to a visit to hospital for a investigation procedure but will be able to do something tomorrow, hoping to get spit offs done and then we are taking some Alpacas to Leusdons Church Animal Blessing which takes place on Leusdon Green and is followed by a cream tea. In fact most things that happen around here seem to be followed by cream teas!

The postman arrived this morning with the North Devon Show information and numbers etc, this prompted me to actually skirt the fleeces and get them packed up ready to go to the show ground. Unfortunately the class numbers didn't agree with what I had entered, as far as I can work out I seemed to have been entered into the halter classes although I only entered fleeces. So I don't know what numbers are for which fleeces and it would appear that I have entered a senior black class, which I haven't got a fleece for! As usual in this situation there was nobody on the end of the phone to talk to so not sure what to do now.

Why have I never got a camera!

2011-07-19T14:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we finally got around to doing our spit offs, we should have done them on Friday but it had been so busy over the weekend and next door had a wedding with lots of guests around so orgling Stud Males may not have been appropriate. We had seven females to test and at the moment 6 out of the 7 spat off just leaving Midnight again not pregnant. Not sure what to do with her now we tried mating her at the end of last year, she spat off one week then sat so mated again, same thing happened. so left her to this spring and she is still sitting one week, spitting off for one or two weeks then sitting again. Her grandmother was much the same but once she actually got pregnant she has been very reliable since.

We had a llama walk today which should have been yesterday but the weather was so bad we postponed it, the rain stayed away for most of the time. We had a lovely walk, took Polo, Blackjack, Logan, Merlin and Murphy, four customers, Steve and myself, lunch was served sitting on top of Yar tor, stunning view and the sun was shining. Not a bad days work!
Anyway when we got back to the Alpaca field we check on the girls and cria, little Lalique was sat down next to her mum and next to her was her half brother Salvador who is huge at only just over two months. He was nuzzling her and licking her face, something I have never seen before, they sat there for quite awhile before Salvador decided it was time to continue to terrorise the rest of the herd closely followed by Carmel who has now taken on the role as his wing man.
We had a quick look at Lalique's fleece because when she was born her fleece was so shiny but seemed to be very straight and not a lot of it which is very unusual for Marietta's cria and we were wondering if this had something to do with her illness but today on further examination it is much better. Not that you can tell to much at this age. This is the first female from Marietta her previous three boys have all won prizes when we have shown them, so we have high hopes for Lalique.

Final cria of the year arrives!

2011-07-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated the blog for several weeks as there really hasn't been anything happening except for the routine things and several things which I really couldn't or didn't want to write about just yet!

Marietta & Lalique

We have been waiting and worrying about Marietta's cria since she was so ill earlier in the year. She has made a full recovery but we still worried about the cria, over the last few weeks Marietta seemed to get bigger by the day and we could see the cria moving about. Anyway when I arrived in the field this morning there was a lovely Dark Brown Female sat in the field still wet so she hadn't been there to long. Marietta had obviously read the text book, gives birth in the morning, up on their legs in 30 mins, suckling within the hour. We have called her Lalique, her sire is Blacklands Picasso and she is a gorgeous chestnut brown colour. So that makes six out seven cria are female this year, not bad!

Caramel, Amber and Caliban ambushing Summer

Our neighbours had a wedding on their property this weekend and we had some of their guests staying in our cottages, so little Lalique had loads of visitors this morning as the news spread around about her arrival.

Choc Ice

We have also had two lots of visitors over the weekend both interested in owning Alpacas, todays visitors arrive a couple of hours after Lalique arrived, great timing I would say.

Caramel & Tigerlily

We are well into our breedings this year, we were hoping to do spit offs but cria and visitors and an afternoon BBQ seem to have delayed that so we will now do them tomorrow after we have been on a llama walk. At the moment we have three spitting off, Bramble, Lily and Mica,and four which were bred last week Carla, Phoebe, Cassini and Midnight, we are holding on to Ella until Marietta is ready to bred and then I am hoping they are going to visit a rather special Black male who resides in Dorset. That leaves little Summer who is still quite small and I am thinking we should leave her until next year.

Salvador with his harem

All this means that our first Cria will arrive late May early June next year. Can't wait !

A Really short blog today

2011-06-09T02:07:00.000-07:00

Just a quick one as I am on the way out,

Not a lot happening here apart from the usual routine stuff, we have a short gap now until Marietta is due to give birth so we are keeping our fingers crossed now. The jury is still out as to whether Demeter is pregnant or not she is 354 days today according to my records but she just doesn't look pregnant to me but definitely won't let a male near her. So who knows!

Hope to have more interesting news soon.

100% record

2011-06-04T14:06:00.000-07:00

We had our last another cria last night and another girl, this time it is a lovely dark fawn possibly light brown, we will have to wait and see. This female is our final cria from Golden Nugget this year although he has several more to go for his co owners Lakeham Alpacas, so far he has only produced females.

Carla with her lump

Carla has been looking uncomfortable for weeks now, she was 363 days yesterday and spent most of the morning sat in the shelter chewing the cud. We checked her at 1pm and she was looking just the same but when we got back at about 5.30pm it was obvious she was in labour, Carla always has her cria in the afternoon so we weren't too worried. After about half an hour of nothing happening and carla pushing I thought I had better have a look, Gloves on and lube I had a little feel around to discover the head and one foot but the other leg was bent back at the knee. This was quite easy to sort out so I left Carla to finish the job which only took another ten minutes before a little brown female cria was deposited on the ground. She was up and about in about half an hour but seemed more interested in running around the field than finding the milkbar. As we hadn't had dinner and lunch seemed along time ago we put Mum and Babe into the field shelter, turned the light on and went home to watch proceedings on Alpaca Cam. Carla soon past the placenta and babe eventually found where the milk was kept after sucking the walls of the shelter for what seemed like ages. Alpaca cam comes into its own in situations like this. we have swallows nesting in the shelter............. not sure what they made of having the light on all night but is interesting to see them caught mid flight on the camera. The cria has been named Golden Caramel (aka Caramel) which is a name my daughter has been suggesting for all Golden Nuggets cria but it actually suits this one.

Carla with Caramel

The rest of the crias are doing well and I managed to get a couple of pictures whilst in the paddock last night. Choc Ice seems happy to share her Mum with Amber, Cassini doesn't seem to mind feeding them both!

Amber & Choc Ice sharing the Milkbar

Salvador continues to be a bully if the girls don't want to play he jumps on them and bites their ears. Calico is nearly as bad and seems to one step behind Salvador all the time. Finally Lily's cria now named Tigerlily is getting stronger by the day, she was a little early and her tendons in her back legs were a little loose, so she was wobbly for a few days, very funny to watch her trying to keep up with the older ones.

Tigerlily

Shearing was on Thursday and it was very hot, poor old Colin was suffering a bit but the girls especially were relieved to their fleece off. My house is now full of bags of fleece which I need to start skirting before deciding which ones to enter into which fleece shows and what to have processed into yarns and tops.
it's been very hot here today but I managed to get some seeds into the veg garden, they are a bit late but the soil is very warm so I am hoping things will catch up. Tomorrow we are going to collect the Studs ready to start our breeding program, I am hoping to get all our births in May and June next year, wishful thinking I think!

Well today was the day!

2011-05-31T16:11:00.000-07:00

Quick blog tonight, just got back in from a very nice evening out with friends.

Lily gave birth this morning with very little effort or so it seemed to another large white/light fawn female, not sure what's going on this year. Lily is dark brown, mated to Nugget who is dark fawn and she produces a very light cria, we have had two other Nugget crias from fawn dams, one which was white and the other a fancy, white with black and brown. Last year all his cria were fawn, we have one more to go which is Carla who is now 360 days, she normally produces darker then the sire but I am not holding my breath. We thought we were in for a colorful field of cria but so far white 3, fancy 1, black 1. I am just hoping that Mariettas cria will be OK after her illness as she is mated to Inca Picasso so it should at least be dark ( I can hope anyway).

I think I may be ripping up my breeding program and starting again.

Lazy day

2011-05-29T14:42:00.000-07:00

We have had a bit of a lazy day today, we got up late, so good to have Alpaca Cam, we can check the girls without going down to the fields. so after a late breakfast we went and fed everyone, gave the sickly cria a bottle which she drank much better today. Then I went off to see a friend for coffee whilst Steve fed the llamas and took the two youngsters, Murphy and Merlin for a short walk down the lane. Then we had quite a long lunch break, Steve had a snooze whilst I ironed the bedding for a changeover tomorrow. Then we went back and poovered the girls paddock, I got the driving the tractor part of the job so that wasn't to arduous.
Grandsons and daughter arrived to give me a lift back home to get dinner whilst Steve topped one of the other paddocks. After dinner Steve and I went back to check all the animals and we spent a good half hour just sitting in the field watching the heavily pregnant girls grazing, just looking at their cria's moving around, Carla is now 357 days and Lily 341 both look fit to burst. Demeter should be 345 days but the jury is out on her, she looks to slim to me and her crias are normally very active, I can't see anything move in her and she has no signs of a udder, so who knows. It's great just sitting, watching and discussing future breedings etc whilst daughter bathed the boys and got them ready for bed (much quieter in the field). On the way home we had a wander over to our hay field just to check how the grass is doing.................. conclusion is we definitely need some rain.

Looking back at what I have just written makes me think it was me that had quite a lazy day, Steve seems to have done rather a lot today!

We have shearing on Thursday and the forecast is good, we will start this years breedings next weekend.

Tooth Ache

2011-05-27T06:07:00.000-07:00

Haven't blogged for a while and the only excuse is that I have had raging tooth ache since coming home from the Devon County Show. Finally got an emergency appointment on Wednesday and an xray reveled a tooth abscess. So I have antibiotics to take and the next available appointment was 29th June so I thought I was in for a long painful wait. So an early morning call this morning took me by surprise, so I am now minus the offending tooth but still in some pain, which I am sure will pass shortly.

Anyway down to Alpacas and Llamas, still only 4 cria, 3 are growing and acting normally but little Choc Ice is not putting on weight, we are topping her up with a bottle which she takes sometimes and not at others. she sits down a lot and doesn't join in the games even when Salvador jumps on her and bits her ears. Not sure what do do now, she has had ADE today so that may give her a boost, so any suggestions would be gratefully received.

We have two more births due, Carla who is now 358 days and Lily 337, Lily normally manages to surprise us by giving birth early usually when we are closely watching on of her field mates. So this year I have been watching her closely for the past two weeks, she looks very uncomfortable.

Oh yes Devon County show I almost forgot, we took Atlas and Prospect, I put them in the shelter the day before the show as rain was forecast. I took a quick look at their fleece and almost dismissed them both, they were both over fleeced and due to the damp weather things didn't look promising. So we were very surprised when Prospect was placed 3rd in his class of junior fawns. Atlas wasn't placed in his class but I had entered them in the Dams Progeny class where we picked up a 2nd place. Both boys are from Marietta who has been so ill recently, not sure she understood what I was telling her when I showed her the rosette, she had produce 3 cria all males and all have been placed in shows. She is still carrying this years cria, we are hoping that it will be OK but are just pleased that she has recovered from what ever was wrong with her.
Now Dentist told be to rest and be waited on today so I think I will try that.

3 girls 1 boy, not bad!

2011-05-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

Today Bramble gave birth to a lovely female cria or maybe I should say Bramble was present whilst her baby arrived. She has been looking uncomfortable for days now and this morning she was sat down, rolling and occasionally standing up, this seems to be her main problem, she spent the whole day sat down, not only that she was usually sat facing down hill .................. has nobody told her about gravity! it was obvious she was in labour and she was quite swollen at her back end, so I left her to it for a while. Came back she is still sat down .......... facing down hill, off I went again, came back lunchtime, exactly the same, she wasn't in much discomfort so I left again for a while thinking that by 3. O. clock even Bramble would have given birth but she wasn't even straining!
I decide that I would take a look and see if anything was happening. Now Bramble is not the most co operative of girls at the best of times and I was on my own so wasn't to hopeful. Bramble was still sitting down and I approached her she gave me that .............. don't you dare come near me look! , but stayed put and I managed to feel inside to see if anything was going to put in an appearance ............. there was two feet and a head but I couldn't feel the nose, a bit of gentle feeling about and I found the nose, the head was slightly back presenting the top of the head instead of the nose. Once I got the head around the right way Bramble started to push ............... still facing down the hill so she pushed uphill, but at least she was doing something. So at 3.45 pm a large (8.5kg) arrived, sired by Caliban and we have named her Calico, standing up and suckling with in the hour, not worst for her slightly drawn out arrival, tonight she has her coat on and is running around the field with the other three cria.

Bramble still facing down hill!

Bramble & Calico this evening

So far this year we have 3 girls one boy , we have 3 possibly 4 more births this year so it will probably even up, but a good start anyway.
I have been out with the camera today as I spent so much time in the field tried to get all three cria in one photo, this only happened when one sat down. The little brown and white cria has been called Choc ice, Ember still weighs less than Salvador and Choc Ice even though she is nearly two weeks older.

Embers rear end, Choc Ice sat down,
Salvador trying to play.

Salvador.

All I need now is for Carla gave to give birth tomorrow, she had the same due date as Bramble and has been looking fit to burst for days now. Devon County show starts on Thursday and it would be so nice not to have to worry about births for a few days, the next two just coming into their birthing window.

We are taking two of the boys up to the show and as they are forecasting rain and mist tomorrow I have put them into the field shelter, which they are not at all please about. The inside of the shelter is now plastered in green stuff and I am not sure if the same green stuff counts as field condition!

Alpacas like buses wait ages and two come at once!

2011-05-08T12:46:00.000-07:00

Golden Ember age two weeks

We have had another eventful weekend, Friday saw another change over in the cottages, so a quick clean out before getting on with Alpaca things. We had noticed some fibre loss on one of the females feet so we got them all in for their weekly check over and treatment was administered where necessary.
Ella who was by now 355 days pregnant had been looking a little uncomfortable but came in with rest of the herd so whilst checking everyone over I thought she was looking a little agitated, so I let her and a couple of others out whilst keeping Demeter in. I am doubtful if Demeter is pregnant as she is very slim which is not like her she usually by now be a very wide load. As we had a Stud male available we wanted to do a spit off just to see, so Humming Rolex was collected from his paddock and put into the pen with Demeter who proceeded to spit like a good un! then launched herself over the hurdles back into the field. So that puts a new light on the matter she is either pregnant or is not going to get pregnant, she is very old and may be had enough.

Whilst this was going on Ella decided to give birth to a very large black male cria (9kg) with absolutely no fuss at all in fact I don't think she stopped grazing through out the whole process. His father is Inca Picasso and he is a half sister to our Champion Black female so we look forward to seeing how he develops.

West Webburn Salvador meeting his Granny Lily (left dark brown)

So two down in the last two weeks, one boy one girl.

Saturday we should have been going on a llama walk but the weather was not suitable which was a shame as two of the people on the walk had to be canceled earlier in the year for the same reason. They under stood and were quite happy to come and see the two youngsters. We will reschedule and hope for better weather next time.

Sunday arrived and we still had to do a llama walk for two customers who were staying in the cottages so we were all prepared for that when we notice that Cassini was looking very restless, she is a maiden so we decided to watch for a while to see if she was in labour or not, she is 348 days. it soon became obvious that this cria wasn't going to wait for much longer and the legs and head were soon visible. we went up to the top paddock to collect the llamas and bring them down to the Cottage field ready for the walk. By the time we got back about 20 mins later another very large cria was on the ground in a cush position, the sire is Golden Nugget who is dark fawn, his mother is a mid fawn and this is what we got.

No name as yet (suggestions on a postcard or e.mail will do!)

we have never had a fancy before but we have to admit she is very pretty, she weighed in at 8.5kg.
Once we had dealt with navel, admiring the cria and watching the rest of the herd come over and say hello to the new arrival we went on out llama walk which was very pleasant if not a bit windy.

Tonight we have been watching all three cria racing around the field on Alpaca Cam and I am sure they are entertaining the customers staying in the cottages.

and finally and update on Marietta, she has continued to improve and can now get up and down on her own, she is steadier on her legs and has spent most of the day grazing, she is still not right and has lost a lot of muscle condition but we are optimistic she will make a full recovery, we will just have to wait and see about her cria.

Marietta

A little bit of good news

2011-05-04T13:57:00.000-07:00

This morning we were doing some Physio with Marrietta who was complaining loudly every time we lifted her. We lift her five or six times and make her stand for a few seconds until she flops back to the ground, this morning she was particularly reluctant to stand. As we were walking back up the field discussing what to do next etc etc, we got back to the field shelter put away the buckets and feed bag. Steve looked back at the Alpacas, Marietta was up or was it one of the other fawn girls standing in front of her, no it was definitely Marietta standing on her own. She stood for about five minutes before trying to walk, which she did rather unsteadily for several meters across the field and then started to graze before eventually collapsing back to the ground.
We were amazed, it will be two weeks tomorrow since she went down and we were beginning to wonder if she would ever get up again. We have been back to the field several times during the day and she has been moving about a bit, she is still very shaky getting back down but it is a big improvement.
The only trouble is we still don't know what it was that caused the problem in the first place or which of the treatments have made her improve, but I am so please she is.

On the pregnancy front we are still waiting for our next cria to be born, Ella is now 252 days, Cassini 245, Bramble and Carla are both 328 just got a feeling they may all be waiting for Devon County show week!

Finally we have a name.

2011-05-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

Our first cria of the year is now over a week old and doing well, I am giving her two bottles a day which she takes easily. She now has a name after a lot of deliberation We try to use some of the sires name so as I can remember who the sire was, So as Golden Nugget is the sire it was decide it would be West Webburn Golden Ember.
An update on Marietta ........... she is no worse but not much better either, she is bright in herself, eating drinking but not able to get up by herself. We lift her several times a day and she can now stand for a few seconds on her own, very shaky legs but at least it is an improvement. Her blood tests suggested she was low in Selenium so we have given her a drench but it is difficult to know how much to give, Vet says the injection has now been withdraw. We don't want to give her to much as this can be bad as well, so if anyone has any experience of drenching with Cobalt, Selenium Drench please let us know.

We went to the Collabear Auction on Saturday, very interesting to see and get our hands on so many animals. Good to see so many other breeders there, also surprising to see the coloured animals fetching higher prices than most of the whites. We came away with a young brown female and a part share in a grey stud male, very striking looking animal with a fine, soft handling fleece for a older male. We especially wanted a grey male to use over a couple of females this year and Lakeham Alpacas also wanted the same so it made sense to try to buy a male between us.

We have had several enquires for boys over the last few days, why didn't we buy some whethers!

A little bit better today.

2011-04-29T13:57:00.000-07:00

Just a quick blog to let you know that there has been some improvement on the Marietta front, this morning when I arrived at the field she was laid flat out, (quite shocking at first) so I up righted her and she had a little munch on her hay. I gave her her drench and the Vit B12 injection the vet had left for her. Marietta had over the past few days managed to reach the bottom of the paddock and the only way we could see to move her was in the link box on the tractor, She wasn't to keen on this at first but sat nicely to be transported to a flat spot at the top of the paddock. As we lifted her out of the link box we held her up and she actually took her wait for about a minute which is a major step forward. she has been happily sat munching her hay for the rest of the day.
We met the Vet later this afternoon to collect some more Vit B12 injection and the results of the blood test. Everything looks normal except for the Selenium which was a little low, but her symptoms did not look like Selenium deficiency. She has higher levels of Calcium and Magnesium which was to be expected as she has had a lot of Calciject 6. The blood test was taken before she had been given the Selenium drench so this has probably improved by now. So we continue to hope she carries on improving little by little.

Thanks for the messages of support and the telephone calls we have received offering suggestions, good to know that Alpaca people are prepared to discuss problems they have had and pass on their experiences.

Some good, some not so bad!

2011-04-28T15:19:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged for a while as there has only been one thing on my mind for the last 11 day, Marietta! she had not been well since a week last monday, the shaking has now stopped but she is still sitting down, she hasn't walked since last Thursday.

The Vet came on Tuesday ............ sat on a bale of straw and scratched his head, the jerking action of Marietta's neck he described as weird and he had never seen anything like that in any animal before except a chicken! He took some blood and we are waiting for the results, he has given her a shot of Vit b12.......... and the following morning there was a marked improvement, the jerky action had gone .............Vet put this down to the cocktail of treatments we had been giving her over the last week. Anyway by Wednesday I was getting concerned that she had been sat in the shelter for over a week and the floor was starting to get wet mainly because Marietta kept kicking the water bucket over. I decided to put her outside the shelter where she could get some sun and the floor of the shelter could dry out, so after she had had her treatments I helped her out of the shelter and settled her with feed, hay and water, she looked set for the day and her mates could visit her. When I came back at lunchtime she wasn't where I had left her, great I thought she's up ................ but no she had rolled, turned or somehow moved about 10 mtrs down the field and she seem quite happy with life, so we left her out. Over the last couple of days she has moved herself around the field and the rest of the girls seem to stay around her. We are continuing to give her the treatments and I make sure she has access to water and hay when ever I go back to check on her. Today she has started to eat grass for the first time for 11 days and she has started to try to move when we approach her, so we are still hopeful that she will continue to improve.

Phoebe on left having breakfast

So that was the not so bad and now the good, last Sunday our first cria of the year arrive in text book style. When we got to the field Phoebe (259 days) was looking like she was in labour so we started to feed the rest of the herd as usual, Phoebe who very much likes her food saw this going on and not wanting to miss a meal ran up the field ate her bucket of feed and then returned to her previous position, less than an hour later cria was on the ground, a female cria, the fourth in a row for Phoebe, sired by Catons Golden Nugget. The cria was up, suckling and having a pee within an hour and a half ........... wish they were all like that!

One hour later.

As we are aware that Phoebe never has much milk for her cria we have been prepared with ewe replacer, bottles etc. Phoebe is OK for the first two days, plenty of colostrum but then not much milk, we can always tell as every time you look at them the cria is underneath and soon starts to have a little bald patch on her nose. So Monday evening I started to give the cria (no name yet) a bottle which it took with ease, we only give two bottles a day as we like to keep them it keen to feed of Mum and we only usually have to do this for about three weeks when the crias are no longer keen to take the bottle. For some reason after this time Phoebe seems to be able to satisfy her babies hunger.

Todays Blog part 2

2011-04-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

Today has been glorious again and we have been pretty busy, firstly I had to do a changeover in one of the cottages. Both cottages are now full and both with returning customers from several years ago before we brought them, it's good when people return year on year. Whilst I was doing the cleaning Steve was using the supa dooper poohpa hoover in the rented paddocks so they are all nice and clean ready to be rested for a few weeks. This afternoon we took four of the trekking team out for a walk with friends, it was good to be out on the moor where there was more of a breeze. Looking down towards the coast it looked as if they were having a good shower of rain, we could hear thunder rumbling in the distance but it stayed away . When we got back from the walk the guests had arrived back from their day out so we let the children meet the llamas and walk them back to the fields. Once the guests had left we wormed all the llamas and put them onto new grass. All of them were remarkably well behaved having their drench, which is unusual as at least one of them manages to store the entire contents of the drench gun in their mouths and then let it dribble out.

This is a picture taken from our alpaca cam this evening of Marietta sitting in the shelter, looking at her she looks perfectly normal, she just won't get up, seems to have enough strength in her legs but just not going to do it. She can move her legs because when we lift her to give her some massage and physio we leave her with her front legs out straight and she almost immediately gets back into a cush position. She is about 8.5 months into her pregnancy perhaps she is going to sit there until she has her cria, what else could a girl want, she has hay and water to hand and gets concentrate delivered to her, no pushing at the trough or fighting over the hay bag for her!. The alpaca cam has come into it's own this week as soon as it is light I can check how she is with out getting out of bed, how good is that. if anyone has any ideas how to get her up we would be grateful for them. It has been so good to get info from fellow breeders not only from the UK but all over the world.

Marietta day 6

2011-04-23T05:04:00.000-07:00

This morning Marietta looks fine but will not get up, twitching stopped. She has had Vit B with the Selenium drench, Epson Salts again this morning and we are now doing Physio twice a day, having her sat on a hay bale whilst we stretch out her legs, plenty of strength there but reluctant to stand. Just continuing to hope she improves.

Off for a walk with the llamas before next physio session.

Not good

2011-04-22T11:32:00.000-07:00

Marietta to look at looks Ok not much twitching or shaking but she won't get up. We have tried to lift her onto her feet but she squeals constantly. I don't think she is in pain just stressed and not wanting to stress her any more we haven't tried to lift her again. I phoned the Vet again and he has no more idea as to what can be the problem, I also phone one of the contacts from the BAS emergency contact list who was very helpful and went through all the things he could think of, most of which we have considered. So far she has had several injections of Calciject 6, several doses of a glucose drench, some selenium and some epson salts, ADE injection.

As she is now down I really don't know what to do, it is so sad to see her and not be able to help.

She is tucked up in the shelter and we can watch her on the Alpaca cam, I am hoping she will improve overnight.

We spent the whole day up in the fields so we did get a day off.

Another quick one

2011-04-21T11:34:00.000-07:00

Thought I would do a quick blog this evening whilst waiting for Steve to return with the Indian Takeaway. We have decided to take tomorrow off and spend the day in the fields with the alpacas but not actually doing any work ................. thats the idea anyway............. I am sure we will find something which will just have to be done.

Marietta is still twitching but seems much better in herself, even came up for a cuddle this evening . She is still having trouble sitting down very shaky legs, she is quite jerky/ twitchy and seems to keep locking her legs straight if you know what I mean. We have kept her off grass but she is eating and drinking well. So I don't know what to think, just keep her quite and hope she continues to improve.

Still know cria, but the girls are really feeling the heat, both Phoebe and Ella are looking very heavy and uncomfortable. Hopefully they will produce something tomorrow while we are lazing around in the fields!

Anyway Indian is about to arrive so better get the wine out for Steve I shall have something non alcoholic as I don't want to have a bad head to ruin my lazy day!

Quick blog

2011-04-20T13:20:00.000-07:00

Just a quick one tonight:

Still not Cria.

Marietta still shaking but no worse, still of grass.

Great llama walk today, lovely weather, great company, not a bad job really.

And I took another cottage booking.

Pretty good day really.

Hope fully I will have some good news tomorrow.

Marietta Update.

2011-04-19T12:58:00.000-07:00

Just to give you an update, Marietta has still got the shakes and twitching, she has had another shot of Magnesium. In fact I think she is slightly worse, she seems to have a problem sitting down very shaky action especially on the front legs although she gets up OK. I am starting to wonder about Selenium now as well, not sure what the symptoms are.

I spent most of the night trawling the internet for anything which might help me sort out the problem and talking to people from all over the place about the possible causes.

Marietta is now in a small enclosure incorporating the field shelter she seem happier if she is outside, it's quite nice to watch the others coming over to check on her, leaning over the hurdles and may be a little hum then back to grazing.

Phoebe still looks content to hold on to her babe, but Ella looks really uncomfortable this evening so who knows perhaps I should open a book.

We are going out for a llama walk tomorrow, half day so I need to prepare coffee and lunches as well as get the linen etc prepared for a changeover in one of the cottages.

Hopefully we will see some sort of improvement in Marietta and I will have some good news to report.

Help please!

2011-04-18T13:50:00.000-07:00

Today we have had a problem with one of our pregnant females, Marietta, probably our best female, she has only produced prize winning cria. Anyway today when Steve went to feed up and check this morning he notice straight away that Marietta was not right, she was shaking and was walking with a jerky action but she was still eating her concentrate and grazing. She was very distressed when penned and became very flighty when handled which is very unusual as she is a very calm animal usually.

We have had a similar problem in a llama a couple of years ago which the Vet diagnosed as Rye Grass staggers but now we are starting to wonder if this was correct. Marietta was not grazing the same field as the llama was, there is no rye grass in the field as it is old lay, so what is it? There is eight other females in that field none of which are showing any symptoms, there is nothing poisonous in the hedgerow.

Vet arrived and gave her a shot of magnesium which if she was a cow would have cured grass staggers instantly, we have to give her another shot for the next two days. We have taken her off grass now and put her into the field shelter with just hay and her concentrate to eat, this if it is the same problem as our llama should cure the problem. She is still shaky very flighty, she nearly took two hurdles with her trying to get out of the field shelter.

It would be really useful to know if anyone else has had such a problem ! It really does pay off knowing your animals because Steve spotted that she was not right as soon as he drove into the field, to anyone else she would have looked normal. So all those hours you spent just watching your animals isn't wasting time!

As we had to move Marietta we decided to bring back the rest of the late pregnant female to the birthing paddock, so we now have seven females all of which reach their due date within the next four weeks. Which in reality means that they should have all given birth by mid June. Marietta isn't due until July so fingers crossed that she holds her pregnancy though this.

A bit of a senior moment

2011-04-17T14:07:00.000-07:00

Just realised I said that one of our girls was 252 days into her pregnancy I should know that there are 365 days in a year which makes her 353 days now. Anyway we are still waiting and she is still chewing her cud, the cria seems desperate to get out though, we spent some time watching it move about this afternoon.

Despite my senior moments we have been very busy this week end or rather Steve has, yesterday he had 15 tonne of gravel to lay on a drive, he has a digger and dumper to play with so I think it was a bit of boys and toys.

Today he has rolled the field that we have set aside for hay, I must say it looks very good.

We did find time to have a picnic lunch in the fields watching the pregnant girls, very relaxing sitting in the sun with your alpacas, but work was calling. So with the rotovator fitted to the back of the tractor the veg garden is now rotovated and ready to be planted, so much easier than digging by hand. Next came my bit, I planted the onion sets and some shallots. I also did a quick change over in one of the cottages after one set of guests left and before the next lot arrived.

The rest of the afternoon was spent laying on the grass watching and waiting, sun shining, lovely warm breeze, so peaceful and quiet..................... then the grandchildren arrived!

Still waiting

2011-04-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

We are still waiting for Phoebe (252 days) to have her cria, we seem to have been watching her for weeks now, at least since we were in Stoneleigh for the Futurity, thank goodness for Alpaca cam.
The camera in the birthing field really enables us to get on with work and other things and when we can't be sure that we can log on to it we can get someone else to keep watch and ring us if there is something happening.
With this in place we went to the spring Show last weekend, really enjoyed meeting up with everyone and the weather was really good, breakfast on the decking at the Hand centre on Saturday morning, great facility.
No rosettes for us this time, but with our show team of two fawn males up against such fantastic quality animals in very large classes, we were not surprised. It was good to see some other smaller breeders doing so well though.
Well it was back to work this week, very busy with our gardening work, holiday cottages are starting to get busy as well now so I have to get back into the swing of change overs etc and at this time of the year it is short breaks, so more change overs than usual. The holiday bookings are definitely different this year, starting much earlier than last year and more last minute, which means we still have a few weeks left in the summer season which was full by this time last year, so who knows, very difficult to predict what is happening!
We went on a lovely Cream Tea walk this afternoon, we weren't sure if it was going ahead when we got up this morning it was thick mist and drizzle but it turned out fine in the end and it was great to get out on the moor again.

Filing cabinets

2011-04-05T08:44:00.000-07:00

As it has been raining most of the day I thought I could catch up with the accounts whilst watching the pregnant females on Alpaca cam. Phoebe is looking very uncomfortable and sitting down a lot so I don't think it will be long before her cria puts in an appearance.
As I had filing all over the floor this morning the conversation came around to filing cabinets, decisions had to be made, carry on filing into box files,......................... never can find anything when needed quickly. Purchase a suspension filing cabinet, ...................wood or metal, I would have liked wood, Steve liked Metal. Do we go out to purchase or buy on line, ....................can I get out of filing now and maybe have coffee/lunch out ...............easy decision there then, ............... go out and purchase two two draw metal filing cabinets. Had coffee out, Steve has spent the rest of the afternoon putting together said filing cabinets. (I think the wooden ones would have been easier to put together) Lots of cursing and lots of mess later tools and packaging all over the front room and I think the first one is almost complete.

I have roasted a joint of our pork in anticipation of Steve's eldest son coming for dinner tonight and am now not sure if it was tonight or tomorrow, still haven't done much filing or accounts but its been fun watch the construction progressing, don't think the other one will get done until we get back from the SWAG show at the weekend.

It's still pouring down with rain and I still have to go and check the animals and collect the eggs.

Thought this was funny

2011-04-02T14:12:00.000-07:00

Josh with the alpacas

I just had to share this.

4 year old grandson in car with his Mum, passes a stock trailer/ horse box, asks Mum "are there Llamas in that horse box? .................... not cows ................. not sheep ............... or even a horse ........... what have I done to him!

Went out with older daughter, Leanne this afternoon for my Birthday treat, foot spa with little fish, I must admit I wasn't sure about it .................... and I am still not sure as it didn't happen! Apparently the company were due to open a second shop today on the Barbican in Plymouth but the fish didn't arrive in time, so instead of canceling the new shops appointments they tried to fit them all in the one shop.............. chaos. We waited for quite a while after our appointment time than had to leave as Leanne had to go to work. So we will try again another day. We had a lovely lunch and look around the shops, quite a treat for me ...............I don't get out much!

Thought it was time to update......

2011-04-01T15:22:00.000-07:00

Well it has been awhile since I blogged and I have been nagged at for not keeping up to date with everything that is happening here on Dartmoor.
In the last two weeks we have been very busy starting with a deliver of a bright red shiny new paddock cleaner which we purchased whilst at the futurity, very exciting, Steve took the day off as we also had the vet coming to do a vet certificate and some castrations........ more about that later. Any way delivery went like clockwork even the driver remembered to ring about an hour before arrival so we could be ready waiting for him. Lorry arrived, large pallet on back of truck with no tail lift, driver had been told he didn't need one! Luckily we had the tractor with link box on had so we slid the pallet into the link box and lifted it down, signed deliver note after a quick check over .......... bye bye driver! We quickly removed the wrapping ready to hitch up to the tractor.............. never been so excited about picking up poo. Steve being more technically minded instantly noticed that although the wheels were on the machine they weren't actually fixed on ...... something about split pins! How b.....y infuriating. A phone call to the parts department resulted in the said split pins arriving the next day............... no apology though. any way not to be beaten a couple of large washers and two nails later and we are picking up poo. Not a bad job as I got to drive the tractor whilst Steve did the poo sucking............ funny he isn't as keen on using the hoover at home. We now have lovely spanking clean fields and the veg garden has a good load of manure ready to be rotovated in.

The same morning as our exciting delivery Richard our vet came to vet check Titan and castrate Felspar, Quartz and Merlin, a little sedative and some local anesthetic and job done, all three grazing in field. When we checked on them later in the day it was obvious that Merlin was not happy, on closer inspection we could see he was bleeding badly from his wound, his fleece was all matted so he had been bleeding for a while. Safely in a pen I was able to wash him down and check his wound which had now stopped bleeding, sprayed him with purple spray and left him separated from his field mates in the track next to his field with Murphy as a companion. We are not sure why he had bled so much but there was evidence of some blood on one or two of the other llamas, so whether there had been some altercations going on we don't know. Merlin has now fully recovered from his ordeal thankfully.

Last weekend we took the llamas to Hound tour for a 60th Birthday party, we had been asked to help carry the guests picnics up to the tor. There must have been over 60 guests there but what we didn't realise was that they all brought their dogs! the llamas took a it of interest in all these dogs arriving but weren't that bothered. We didn't know what to expect when all these people, dogs and llamas walked up on to the moor and I was getting worried that they would get really upset about it............ not a problem, why do I worry like this......... The llamas lead by Lenny calmly walked carrying bags of food, totally ignoring all the dogs............. I am sure that they sussed out that these were very well behaved dogs and were not going to be a threat to them. We even had a bit of a sniff at any dog that dared to get close enough..... even young Murphy had a sniff with a spaniel. So I now need to rethink our no dogs rule!

Last sunday was my Birthday so we had the day off, drove down to the coast, had lunch and walked along the coast path at East Prawle and then had some dinner before we came home, so nice not to have to cook!

On Wednesday we held our Spinning course, Jean Field came and gave us some excellent instruction, our friend Norma provided a lovely lunch including some very nice cake. I have now spun quite a bit of Titans fleece and now need to decide what to knit with it.

Yesterday we had a llama visit from a local hospital OT Dept, it was too windy to go up on the moor so we had a walk along the lanes and had tea on the patio of our holiday cottage. We really enjoy these group visits as everyone seems to get so much out of the experience.

Finally today we delivered the five Alpaca boys to Cornwall, Titan and Calypso to join Carpalla Herd, we unloaded them into a six acre field which is great but it was misty and after a few minutes they disappeared into the mist. They are going to be very busy boys as the girls were in the field on the opposite side of the track and they all looked very ready and eager to meet the boys........... a lot of flirting going on along the fence line! I think Nigel and Margaret are going to be very busy over the next few weeks as well and we can't wait to see the results next year. Good Luck to you both.
Felspar, Quartz and Stephano have landed on their feet, they have gone to live near Fowey where they have holiday cottages. We unloaded and settled them into their new paddocks which had so much grass, at least 6 inches high and really lush and green. After some basic instruction on how to handle them, put halters on etc we left them just munching away, they didn't even look up, not sure they notice we had gone! that gratitude for you! I will really miss this group of boys in the morning when I go to feed up, they were such a lovely group. Now we just have Atlas and Prospect who when we returned with the trailer were a bit bemused that their friends had not returned as well.

Felspar & Quartz

So as you can see it has been busy here, tomorrow as a birthday treat! I am having a foot massage and something which involves little fish ............... not sure what thats all about!

Great weekend

2011-03-20T16:31:00.000-07:00

We have had a very productive weekend, well Saturday was productive, today has just been lovely.

West Webburn Golden Prospect

Yesterday we were up fairly early as we had planned lots of Alpaca jobs and I had a change over in the holiday cottages to do. We got everyone fed first, then discovered that we were low on water so this had to be pumped from the stream which runs along the bottom of the field. Next we rounded up the young male Alpacas, these need to a some halter training refresher course. There are seven boys in this group and five of them were sold earlier in the year, they will be going off to their new home in the next couple of weeks. Titan and Calypso are off to join the Carpalla herd near St Austell, they will join their females and it looks like they will be very busy boys this spring, we wish Nigel and Margaret the best of luck with their new vnture. We are very much looking forward to seeing the resulting cria next year. The other three boys, Quartz, Felspar and Stephano are going to Fowey as pets, our vet is coming on Tuesday to castrate the two older boys before they leave, Stephano isn't old enough yet.
In preparation for their departure we weighed and wormed all of this group, gave them a good check over looking for any evidence of mite which I am pleased to say there wasn't any and as the sun was shining I managed to get some pics. I have never tried to take fleece shots so gave that ago as well, Titan is looking great and his fleece is still very crimpy and bright with a very soft handle, he really is a stunning looking Alpaca, we will be sad to see him go.

West Webburn Titan

West Webburn Titan Fleece

The girls have been in their new field for a week now and are all looking very relaxed, instead of galloping in for feed in the mornings it is now a gentle stroll to see if there is anything interesting in the buckets. We did some fencing in this field yesterday to split off the end which we are going to save for hay. This was not popular with some of the girls as they seem to prefer to be in that end of the field, but as you can see from the pictures it is a very large field.

As I said today has been less about work and more about relaxing, this morning Vicky and I and the two Grandsons took Grit the pony back to his owner and had a little handling training. Grit has been quite a naughty pony and played up when we arrived. So he was picked out to demonstrate how he should behave, after a few minutes he was behaving beautifully and was handed back to me to try. Once I had got the body language right it was simple I had him walking , standing and going back and he was so good, might try it with the llamas tomorrow. After all this fun Steve picked us up and we went to the pub for a big family get together which was very nice, great to see family from America.

New field

Another weekend over but the weather looks set to continue for this week, the job list doesn't seem to get any shorter, in fact the more you do the more you find to do!

Birthing box

2011-03-15T12:16:00.000-07:00

Today started off grey and misty but I had a job booked in for this morning, the road is still closed so a bit of a detour as usual. After I had finished at lunchtime I went back to the fields where Steve was putting in some new gates next to the field shelter to form a large pen inside the gate way to the field as well as being able to use the gates to form a small pen in front of the shelter, clever stuff. The sun had come out by lunchtime and it was quite warm, Phoebe who is due to give birth first was sat chewing the cud in the bottom paddock looking on with interest at all this activity. Thinking of impending births I decide to get the birth box down from the storage shed just to check we have the essentials! we had including a bottle of lubricant which had tipped over and leaked it's contents into the bottom of the box...... lovely! so everything which could be washed has been including the cria coats that were stored in the box as well, so we are not fully prepared except I need to get a new bottle of lubricant.
The electrician also came this morning to finish wiring in the camera, up to now it has been plugged into an extension lead, now it has it's own socket which means we now have no camera!............. apparently it has lost it's IP address and I now need to take the laptop back down there to reinstall it, great just when we really need it, its not working! another job for tomorrow.

I was hoping to upload some pictures of the females in their new paddock but have left the camera in the car and as the road is closed it is parked in the village, no street lights here so I am not walking down there to get it, in the meantime I thought I would share a picture of my daughter in her new style wellies, for which she will probably be very annoyed with me!

Futurity

2011-03-13T01:19:00.000-08:00

We have just returned from a great weekend at the British Futurity, great to catch up with everyone, talk Alpacas and have a good look at all the animals there. The quality was amazing and such large entries in each class which is good to see.

Anyway back to work today and we are just off to move the female Alpacas onto the new field which has got some lovely grass in it, they will be so pleased!
We are keeping a few of the very late pregnant girls behind and they will move onto a clean paddock ready for birthing, the first one is just 10.5 months, so we will be keeping a close eye on her now, she is usually very easy although we know she doesn't produce much milk so are prepared for this.

The new camera came into it's own this weekend and we could check on the animals using the computer or my phone so I think this is going to be a godsend whilst waiting for births this year.

Anyway sun is shining and work is calling so must go.

Road closed and New mode of Transport

2011-03-09T07:48:00.000-08:00

Over the past few weeks the Water board has been replacing the main water supply to Widecombe in the moor which means that they have fenced of a strip of the fields at home. What with the wet weather last month this made one hell of a mess with diggers, dumpers etc going in and out. Finally they have finished in the fields and have started in the road resulting in a short stretch of road between our house and the fields being closed. A detour of about 3 miles each way has resulted in either getting up ridiculously early to get through the road works before they get to work or parking the car in the village so we can walk pasted the closure and then drive the rest of the way. Either option is a pain as once they get to work you can't get through so if we forget anything it's a long detour or walking.
Steve had to fill up the Discovery this week and got a shock as to how much it cost, we don't use it much as it is mainly for towing either the stock trailer or Steve's work trailer, anyway economizing is the order of the day and as my car doesn't use as much diesel Steve will now use that where possible for work and I will have a new mode of transport! With this in mind this morning he retrieved our bikes from the back of the barn. Surprisingly as they had not been used for about eight years (life before alpacas) they are still in working order so oiled, tyres checked etc I will now be riding my bike to and from the fields, coming back is all downhill so thats not to bad but going, well I think I will be walking most of it!
He did say something about getting fit as well.................... I left to pack the bags................... ready to go to the futurity this week end!..................Maybe I should suggest we walk from the hotel to Stoneleigh! or put the bikes in the car!

Busy Weekend

2011-03-06T12:00:00.000-08:00

With the lovely dry weather continuing we have been busy around the fields and the holiday cottages. Steve finished the chain harrowing in the fields currently being rested all we need now is some grass to grow. We are still waiting for the final go ahead to move some animals into the new field, obviously not a priority for the landowner but very frustrating for us!
We have been busy finishing off the decorating and refurbishing in the cottages, it seems to have taken for ever this year but with all the cold weather in December it all got pushed back. Anyway we have fitted new TVs on brackets in the lounges also add a new lookalike electric wood burner in each cottage as we don't have chimneys we thought these would be the next best thing, just to give a focal point to the lounges, quite effective really, not like the real thing though. So both cottages are now looking really smart with the changes and their new bathrooms.
In between working outside I have been uploading some pictures of the changes to the cottage website and I have been meaning to take some pictures of the Alpacas now they are all fluffy and dry but haven't got round to that yet. I have been trying to update the Alpacas site as well so I really need to do the pictures.
I finally managed to get my entry into the craft section of the Futurity finished, not in time to post it to Mileend but I have managed to get them taken up to Stoneleigh in time for Thursday's judging, I really need to be more organised in future.
I am really looking forward to the Futurity next week, we are not showing any animals so haven't got the stress of that, so plenty of time to catch up with everyone over coffee or probably something stronger!

Spring or not spring

2011-03-05T13:19:00.000-08:00

We have had several days of sunshine or at least dry weather and I was beginning to think Spring had arrived but it is getting colder again and has been frosty in the mornings. The birds also thought spring had arrived, lots of activity going on in the hedgerows around the fields. We have started on the spring time jobs, setting some of the paddocks aside to rest, giving them a good clean up and chain harrowing.
We have had a couple of husbandry days, weighing all the females, toe nails etc and continuing the halter training.
One of our winter projects is nearly finished, we have installed a camera on the field shelter, very whizzy it is too, turns through 360 deg so we can check the animals whilst in the shelter and out in the fields. The main reason for having the camera is to be able to check the pregnant females when they are near their due date without intruding on them to much, but the best bit is we can log into it while we are away from home. So while we are at the futurity next week we will be able to check on things at home.......... how good is that.
We have also been busy finishing off the holiday cottages, decorating etc we are on the last leg now, installing new fires in both cottages making them a bit more cosy for our guests in the colder months.
Steve and I were sat on the balcony enjoying a well earned cup of coffee this morning, the bird song at this time of the year is almost deafening, so quiet in the countryside isn't it ........... birds singing, tractors chain harrowing but what a view overlooking the fields with the Alpacas grazing peacefully and then further in the distance the countryside down towards the coast. We all most booked ourselves in for a weeks holiday!
Next project is to install some fencing and gates around the shelter to provide a permanent catch pen and race to put the scales in when needed, I am hoping to get a breeding pen in place as well but haven't told Steve that bit yet, these plans need to evolve I think!
We are looking forward to a short visit to the Futurity next week so hope to see some fellow bloggers there and very much looking forward to seeing all these lovely Alpacas we have been reading about over the last few months.

Llama walking

2011-02-15T14:22:00.000-08:00

We went out on the moor with the llamas for our first walk of the year, it was cold, windy and occasionally wet but the customers enjoyed it and we managed to find a sheltered spot on Yar tor to stop for our cream tea.
Murphy and Merlin came along for the walk whilst Polo carried the tea. It was Murphy's first time out on the moor and as usual he took it all in his stride, he really is a very laid back llama!
I really hope we don't have too much more of this wet weather as we have several walks booked over the next few weeks and it is much more fun when the sun shines!

We have had the confirmation that we have got the new land we were after for the next two years at least, we can now make plans for the fencing we will need to divide it up. The field is seven acres and is a very strange shape, wide at both ends narrowing in the middle which lends itself to being split into three paddocks. With bio security in mind we will also put a catch pen at the gate end to not only give us an area to use for husbandry but giving us a good barrier between our animals and the livestock on the common land as this gate gives direct access to open moorland. Luckily all the fences have a good thick hedge so there can be no contact with any other stock.

Sun, Snow and Dartmoor Grey Drizzle

2011-02-14T14:51:00.000-08:00

I have just spent a week in the french Alps with one of my daughters and my two grandsons, the weather was fantastic, wall to wall sunshine and blue skies and the snow was still pretty good as well. Great to see the boys learn to ski, how they go from not being able to stand up to skiing down the mountain in 6 days is amazing. So a whole week away from the wet miserable Dartmoor weather, poo picking, hayrack filling and feeding up. Luckily for me Steve doesn't do Skiing so he stayed behind and looked after the animals while we were away enjoying ourselves. Couldn't wait to get back to them though, the llamas did give me the silent treatment for awhile, but this morning they were all back to normal. The alpacas didn't seem to notice I was back either but then until they have had their breakfast they aren't interested in anything.

We have our first Llama walk tomorrow and as the boys have had a bit of a lazy winter we had a little training session this morning, turns out they didn't need any refresher course, Polo took the pack system as if he has been working all winter. Blackjack just enjoyed to walk as usual, poor old Lenny is suffering with his leg and is limping quite badly so we are now seriously considering retiring him this year, although he couldn't wait to get out on the walk this morning, so it is difficult to know what to do.

We have been discussing the grass situation as we need to rest the birthing paddock. We have the boys who will be off to Cornwall in April and the female Alpacas who are due to give birth later in the season who could be moved onto the new grass once the owner gives us the go a head, this would leave us with just the 3 or 4 females that are due end of March/April in the Cottage paddocks. That would mean we can shut up the Birthing Paddock for a good 5 weeks, give it a good clean up, clear out the field shelter ready for the first of this years babes.

If we decide to retire Lenny this year he will go and live with the two old female llamas and the female Alpaca herd, which I am sure he will enjoy as he does like to think he is in charge and play the protector role!

Poor little Murphy!

2011-02-03T11:01:00.000-08:00

Murphy has not had a good day today and it was all my fault.

Murphy and his buddy Merlin have been sharing a paddock with the two weanling Alpacas Prospect and Stephano for several weeks now and the time has come for some paddock movements. We wanted to get all the llamas together so that they could sort out their differences before the trekking season starts off and I wanted to get the five Alpacas who have been sold into another paddock with Prospect and Atlas who now form my entire Show team! All went well, I split the groups out and let the two little llamas into the track, then let the other llamas into join them. I was sure that everything would be OK as they have all had contact over the fence for months with no trouble. Polo and Logan took one look at Murphy and chased him down into the bottom corner of the paddock, pinned him down with Logan (who is usually the most mild mannered Alpaca who is in the llama trekking team) sitting on Murphy's neck and Polo stamping on him. Blackjack was just about to join in when I got to them, they gave up when I shouted at them and let Murphy get up. He was obviously very shaken and I managed to guide him back out of the paddock into a pen where I checked him over, no damage but obviously shocked. He is such a good natured young llamas and didn't bare any grudge towards me and we did have a cuddle.
I don't know why they picked on him when they completely left Merlin alone.
I have now put Merlin and Murphy in the small paddock with Lenny our old llama who will not worry them, I am hoping that he will take Murphy under his wing and we will introduce the others to this group one at a time I think. Lenny usually defends the youngsters but this morning he had taken himself off to the lower paddock and was not around to help them.
Murphy is not quite sure of Lenny and when I left him this evening he was gazing longingly at Prospect and Stephano in their paddock next door, Merlin seem totally unaffected by the whole thing.
It was really shocking to see how violent these usually mld mannered animals could be, the Alpaca group couldn't have been more different............. not sure the older group even noticed the two youngsters arrival, the hay rack had just been filled up after all.

Fasinex finally

2011-01-25T15:32:00.000-08:00

We finally managed to drench the last group of animals with Fasinex yesterday, the llama and Alpaca boys. The rest of the herd had theirs in December but with the onset of the bad weather the boys missed out. Anyway they are done now, the Alpacas were all little angels no spitting or extreme dribbling in fact Titan seem to positively enjoy his dose. The two young llamas were no problem but the older ones which we had left til last in the vain hope that they may watch how the others behaved were little b.....rs, Lenny first refused to open his mouth so I had to pries it open and maneuver the drench gun into position to administer his dose which he promptly let drain out as soon as I let him go. The difficulty for me is that I am only 5ft 2in and I can't reach to hold the head up and squeeze the drench gun, Steve is tall enough but then I can't hold them. Blackjack wasn't to bad but he doesn't like having his halter on at the moment. Polo wouldn't let me catch hold of his head collar and somehow ended up kneeling down, which made it easier to hold his head up once I had managed to get hold of him. I gave him his dose and everything seemed to stay down so Steve released his hold on him for which Polo rewarded him with a full blow sneeze which coated him with a good dose of white liquid. I wish the boys were like our old female Llama 'Georgina' we just ask her to smile and she opens her mouth, put the drench gun in and she just drinks the liquid.............. great job done, no hassle!
Whilst we had the boys in they had a ADE shot and we had a good look at fleeces, Prospect's fleece is looking amazing, definitely the best we have ever produced.
Over all this attention they we all awarded with a little treat of concentrate, just to make sure we had been forgiven for giving them horrible medicine.
This morning we had time for some Halter training with the youngsters, the two Alpaca boys are coming along nicely and the two llamas are now progressing onto walking with blankets and even a training pack. Murphy didn't bat an eyelid at walking with the packs on but Merlin was not impressed at all, just to prove that they are all different, he will be fine with a couple more training sessions.
Then we decided that we needed to take down a couple of trees along the track down to the holiday cottages. We have a bank on which there are several Sycamore and some Ash growing, as we have a rather lovely stone barn on the other side of the track we don't want to let these trees grow to big as it will be very difficult to take them out. So with me on the rope and Steve with the chainsaw we had to drop these trees into the track without catching the roof of the Barn. Luckily they fell exactly where Steve said they would and we now have a stack of logs and kindling ready for next winter. They will grow back from the stumps so this will screen the rather ugly farm buildings next door and we will take out another two trees next winter. Good to know that we have our own supply of wood which will continue to regrow for future winters especially as the price of oil is going through the roof.

A few Pictures

2011-01-22T00:33:00.000-08:00

Stephano

As the sun was shining yesterday I took the camera out mainly to take some shots of the boys who are going to Cornwall in a couple of months. Stephano who has so much fleece has been very messy and dirty in all that wet weather but is now looking all cute and fluffy now.

Atlas with frost on his back is now one of the two boys left in our show team, both fawns luckily with the hot competition going on in the brown classes this year.

Calypso posing in the sun shine all bravado as he is a bit of a whim especially when being given a pedicure, he whines in your ear the whole time.

Finally Titan with frost on his back and straw in his top knot, he definitely got attitude, followed me around putting himself in front of camera. He's going to be a herd sire in Cornwall in a couple of months.
Today we have 10 tonnes of scalpings being delivered ready to be spread over the car parking area next to the holiday cottages which will make it look much better since Steve dug a trench right through it. Once this is done we can get on with connecting the camera on the field shelter in the birthing paddock. It's so nice to be able to get these outside jobs done now it is dry.

Looking for a New Stud

2011-01-17T15:50:00.000-08:00

Langaton Caliban

Following on from our sales over the weekend we have decided to look for a new Stud male for this seasons breeding's. Our two Stud males have given us some stunning cria and we are really please with them but we would like to purchase a much darker male, currently we have Caliban who is light fawn and Nugget is dark fawn ................. yes I know we have just sold a dark brown male but we really would like to introduce some new bloodlines into the herd.

Caton Golden Nugget

So Caliban has gone up for sale at a very sensible price, he is a bargain for someone and Nugget will stay with us for a while yet. Well as I have just found out Black/Dark Brown/Grey Stud males are like hens teeth at the moment, Oh there are quite a lot advertised as Stud males but looking at Bloodlines and fibre stats as well as the actual look of some of them, you soon dismiss them as just not good enough. So I think we are going to have a bit of a search for the right male. What really frustrates me is when you think you may have found something and you send a e.mail or leave a message nobody returns the call ........ even more annoying when you here the said same persons complaining about the lack of Alpaca sales!
Anyway thats enough ranting, yet again the weather interrupted work plans again today, Steve had got himself set up for a fencing job this morning but we woke to thick mist and heavy rain, not good for getting landrover and trailer across several steep fields. So as usual when it is raining we went out to buy materials in readiness for anticipated dry weather.

Our hens seem to think that spring is on its way the older hens are giving us 3 eggs a day now and the point of lays we brought in November have actually produce one egg this week, no ideal which one it was and it must have been a bit of a shock as we haven't had one since.

Life is good

2011-01-16T04:05:00.000-08:00

West Webburn Titan

Despite the awful weather we have had a great week, as many of our regular readers know Steve gave up his employed work at the beginning of last year to concentrate on our Alpacas, Llama walks and Holiday cottages. He also went back to Landscaping on a part time basis, everything seemed to fall into place and we had a very successful year, enough work to keep us going, good Holiday bookings and the llama walks were really popular and we sold some Alpacas!. We knew we needed to earn enough to take us through the winter if it was bad weather. Well as we all know the weather has been pretty bad and Steve hadn't work since the beginning of December and we were starting to worry a little bit. So this week has been really encouraging, we have had rain all week and have had to put work off again so we even got to the stage of clearing out cupboards, so its got to be bad. Anyway the phone has started to ring with work for Steve, we have taken a couple of holiday bookings and had several more enquires. Then best of all we had a phone call about Alpacas which has turned into a sale, so five of our young boys are off to Cornwall at the beginning of April. Titan our Dark Brown male who won a 1st at Devon County and 3rd at Swag is going to be a herd sire with Calypso as a companion possible stud male and the other three Quartz, Felspar and Stephano are going to be pets. We wish their new owners who I can't tel you about as I forgot to ask their permission all the best for the future.

Felspar and Quartz

We are now feeling that we will be OK for the rest of the winter and are looking forward to some nicer weather, this is what life is about, not being tied to a job that was frustrating, we work hard but we work for ourselves, we don't make mega bucks but we have enough to feed, cloth and house us, we live in a wonderful place and we really appreciate it. For the first time since we have been breeding our Alpacas we can say that we don't have any males for sale so we are looking forward to this years crop of youngsters and then we can decide on what we would like to sell later this year.

We have been halter training in the rain and even if they look all wet and miserable they are all getting used to it and walking fairly well. Golden Prospect as he is so small was getting covered in hay as he seems to like to sit under the hay bags and the other three, Murphy, Merlin and Stephano eat over the top of him. Prospect is going into our very small show team this year so I would like him to keep clean. With this in mind we decided to buy a small hayrack hoping this may help, so off to Mole Valley (as it was raining again) and a 4ft hayrack which fitted nicely into the back of the car was acquired. It's amazing that the cost of the 4ft is nearly as much as the 8ft racks but they are much harder to move around and it is so nice to be able to put the rack in the back of the car if we have animals in fields over in Widecombe, saves a journey with the trailer.

We are having a proper day off today, well after feeding up, we are going to some friends for lunch and probably tea, and possibly evening drinks. They are neighbours and they are very good to us in the summer months as they see us working in the fields from their windows. So they feel sorry for us and feed us quite often to save me going home to start cooking, ............ which is so nice. Audrey is also teaching me to weave so I think we may be setting up the loom this afternoon.......... did I say this was a day off!

I have started knitting up some of our wool from the mill and I am really pleased with the results, it knits up so soft and I already have had enquires for some hats. I am also hatching up a plan, it is very much in the planning stage at the moment. !

New Year planning meeting

2011-01-10T12:24:00.000-08:00

New Bathroom

Finally the bathroom in one of the holiday cottages has been completed just in time for our annual inspection by Visit Britain. Usually I have got all the decorating and deep cleaning done in time for the dreaded visit but what with the bad weather, getting married, going on holiday etc etc I haven't even started it. I only hope that the dreaded inspector can see that it is a work in progress and give us our 4* rating. I have spent the last few days painting some reclaimed furniture for one of the bedrooms, they look really good now, pine with white doors now and I have lined the interior of the wardrobes and drawers with wallpaper to match the wall covering and compliment the bedding. I really need to update the photos on the cottage website now. See this is what happens you do one job and it instantly creates at least one more.

Bedroom in Robin Cottage

On Sunday we had a new year meeting with Mike & Liz from Lakeham alpacas to discuss what we are doing this year with regards to shows, breeding etc. As we hadn't seen them for a while we combined this with roast lunch and a good bottle of wine (at least they had wine I am refraining for a while) We have a freezer full of pork so a good leg of pork was roasted and served with sprouts, parsnips and swede from the garden, not bad in terms of food miles and it tasted good as well!
After lunch and down to business.......... are we showing this year......... yes what breedings are we doing, are we using outside Studs ? (I have my eye on one in particular) What shows are we having a stand at ? Lots of decisions to be made and then onto fleece and yarn, as I had just got my yarn back we had a good rummage with that and looked at the fleeces we had left. The discussions then lead onto where we go from here................ who knows lots of things in the pipe line so I think this should be an exciting year.

We have decided to run a spinning course locally as we have been asked so many times what we do with our fleece. I have learnt to spin recently and I really enjoy it so we have booked our local hall and engaged Jean Field to be our Tutor for the day. Details of the course are now on our News and Events page on our website.

On a totally different subject Alpacas and Dogs ............. Steve was down the field this after noon when the females came charging through the gate between the fields............. not sure what was going on he spotted a large black collie dog running up the field with Bramble and Carla in hot pursuit, the dog got to the top corner of the field but couldn't get over the fence ............ frantically looking around he spotted Steve in the other corner, decided he couldn't go that way is only option was to run back down the field............ again closely followed by Bramble and Carla this time he managed to get over the bottom fence ............. just wonder what would have happened if it couldn't have got out ! Good to know the girls were on the ball and when Mr Fox comes around they will deal with him in the same way.

Parcel in the night

2011-01-05T14:53:00.000-08:00

While I was patiently waiting for my Tesco order to be delivered last night, I had an unexpected delivery from a courier, couldn't think what it was. Big box taped up to with miles of brown tape, took some getting into I can tell you! Finally I was in, my wool and tops at last back from the mill, I had know idea it was on it's way, it was so long ago I sent it off I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see it again. Usually we join together with Lakeham Alpacas and send a big load of fleece off to the Natural Fibre Company which results in about 25kg of knitting yarn being sent back, we usually managed to sell it within the year but this time I wanted to try a smaller mill and have a selection of colours. So now I have some of last years grey, white, fawn and black, not bad!
I had sent three fleeces off to come back as double knit yarn and two fleeces into tops, I am really pleased with it, the tops are so soft .... can't wait to start spinning it. The yarn feels and looks great, I have a black which is really black and comes from our champion female West Webburn Midnight, a light fawn from West Webburn Calypso and a off white from Langaton Caliban. Now to decide what to do with it all,we only do markets in the run up to Christmas and they were really bad this year due to the bad weather so our next retail opportunity will be the summer shows. So I think I will try to find some different outlets, we already have a couple of wool shops who buy our wool and we do a lot of our own hand knits as well. I keep thinking we should put some on the website but to be honest it is usually sold by the time it has been knitted so I have never got around to it. I now have nearly a year to build up the stocks ready for next Christmas. We have a couple of interesting ideas in the pipeline so hopefully with some hard work these will work out.
I have started knitting the wool I have just spun and it looks quite good, very soft to handle, I need to spin another skien now as I haven't enough to finish the scarf. Good job the weather is so wet I have an excuse to be inside by the woodburner with the spinning wheel!

Are we all halter train and doing Pedicures?

2011-01-04T09:32:00.000-08:00

Weanlings meet Llama team

Murphy

I seem to have read several blogs over the last few days and everyone seems to have started halter training and giving their Alpacas pedicures and we have been doing just that. We brought all the females back from Widecombe as we had back up feeding lady had moved house and if we had anymore bad weather we may have been in a position of not being able to get to them. Luckily one of our neighbors has given us the use of a field which is next to our, nice clean pasture which the girls are now enjoying. Once they were back we got them into the shelter gave them all a check over and cut any toes nails that needed doing, next the scales came out, this is the first year we have had the scales during the winter and it is so reassuring to be able to weigh everyone to check they are doing OK. With all that fleece it is difficult to see if any are getting thin. All of them are in good condition considering they live out all the time and have been over on Widecombe hill which is quite high and gets more snow than we do here, they had either maintained their weigh or some had even put on a little, this is very encouraging, most of them are pregnant and our first ones are due at the end of March.

Merlin & Murphy

We started halter training yesterday morning, firstly Murphy (very special young Llama) he has had a halter on possibly three times before, just for a few minutes so we didn't expect to much from him. We put him into the catch pen with Merlin and put halters on both of them, no problem so off we when for a walk up the lane, he was very good followed Merlin as if he had been doing it all his life. This morning we repeated the process this time we needed to push Merlin along a bit so we put a blanket on his back. Murphy was looking very interested in the blanket so we got another one for him to have a look at, he wasn't bothered by it so I tried to put it on his back, not a problem, didn't move an inch so we went for another little walk, down the lane this time. They both walk very well, Murphy if anything is a little too eager and we have to try! Stefano and Prospect are just at the having the halter put on for a little while and then taken off again. I think we will try walking them tomorrow.

I have also been doing some spinning and have managed to produce a skein of what looks to me like some usable yarn, so I am going to start knitting it up tonight. I have only just learnt to spin and have had many failures which have ended up in the bin, some of my early attempts have been used on the peg loom and I have made a cushion cover front.......... if you look closely you can see the improvement in my spinning from the beginning to the end. I am looking for some heavy fabric to make the back side of the cover then I think I will put it in one of the cottages, cause that will impress some of our regular customers who are always asking what I do with all that fleece!

return of the Dartmoor mist

2010-12-29T12:11:00.000-08:00

and I for one are not moaning about it .............. yet! Yesterday was the first time I had been able to get my car home, it had been parked at Poundsgate since we got home from Madeira last Tuesday. The road between Poundsgate and Ponsworthy was only passable sensibly in a 4x4 until yesterday morning when the milder air and Dartmoor mist managed to melt the solid ice compacted on the road.

Feeding the Alpacas now takes a fraction of the time and not having to carry water is great, but don't the fields look miserable? We need to do some serious poo picking this week. We are going to wean the final two boys and Merlin the llama tomorrow (hopefully) This will involve collecting the females and the two boys from Widecombe, the females will go into a clean field in front of the holiday cottages and the weanlings will go into the top fields well out of sight of their mums. They are all eating from the troughs and they should have been weaned several weeks ago but with the cold weather and difficulty getting to Widecombe, let alone towing a trailer over there, we left them a little longer. Jazz, Merlins mum is losing condition now so she really does not need to be feeding this huge boy, he is a bit of a mummy's boy though, so I am expecting to have a very upset little llama tomorrow!

We are off to a fancy dress party on Friday so I have been shopping for suitable clothing today and I had the normal things such as banking etc to do as well. Now I don't like Newton Abbot at the best of times but this morning was just about the limit. Everywhere I needed to go was either shut or opening late or the que was right out the door, even the O2 shop wasn't open!, the opticians had a note on the door saying back in 10 mins which was there for 45mins. Thought I could get fish & chips for lunch, they were shut! 'Pasties' I thought, butchers shut, ..............half day closing! Sandwich bar shut! So gave up and went home for scrambled egg on toast!
Just got in, listened to the phone messages, one from holiday cottage guests.............. no cold water in the shower and the DVD not working. So spent all afternoon trying to sort that out, DVD sorted, shower not!

Looking forward to the new year, wishing everyone a good one.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T11:59:00.000-08:00

Just taking a short break from preparations to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and a fantastic New Year. Lets hope that the weather improves and we can get back to poo picking and halter training. Before we know it we shall be in to the show season, first the futurity and then for us the SWAG Spring show. We look forward to seeing you all in the show ring.

We have had a busy year here at Dartmoor Llamas/ West Webburn Alpacas, on top of that Steve and I found time to get married on the 9th December, we had a lovely day with friends, a fantasic lunch at the Coombe House Hotel, we spent the night at the Royal Clarence Hotel in Exeter with dinner in the Micheal Caines Restaurant which was a present from one of my daughters, followed the next day by a Family dinner, finally a visit to our local pantomime on the Saturday evening, before flying off for a week in Madeira which turned out to be a little longer than planned due to the bad weather in Exeter which resulted in our plane not being able to leave the airport to collected us. Credit to the holiday company who put us up in a hotel, fed us until we could leave the next day. Troubles were not over as we could only drive as far as Poundsgate which is a couple of miles from home but where our Holiday cottages are, so we had to spend the night in one of the cottages, finally getting home the next day thanks to Steve's Brother who collected us with the Tractor, my car is still stranded as our road is still only passable with a 4x4.
Christmas preparations have been a bit rushed to say the least but I think we are nearly ready now (to late if not) This afternoon I decided that I really couldn't manage with out a Christmas Tree, so looking at the fir trees in the top garden that were getting very close to the power lines, Steve got the chain saw out and cut one of them down, taking the top 7ft out to provide me with a slightly odd shaped tree, looks great now it is decorated. How good is that!
Any way I can't do any more now, we sat down to pot roasted pheasant for dinner tonight with a bottle of wine and we will enjoy our Christmas day.

Have a good one everyone.

A bit of Retail therapy

2010-12-04T12:39:00.000-08:00

Dartmoor returned to it's usual December weather, grey drizzle, the trouble with this was it landed on freezing cold roads and turned to sheet ice. We couldn't get out of the yard until nearly lunchtime, not only the roads were bad but the fields as well, Steve did the feeding up this morning and the light dusting of snow we had on the grass had also turned to ice. Lenny in his rush to the food bucket fell flat on his face and although shocked and slightly embarrassed by this wasn't put of his breakfast. Whilst Steve was out feeding I had a good session with the ironing, we have a booking in the cottages at the end of the week and none of the bedding had been ironed, I managed half of it before succumbing a peaceful cup of coffee.
After lunch I had to go an buy Steve's Christmas present or at least try to, the pressure is on this year as Steve normally leaves his pressie shopping until Christmas Eve but for some reason this year, he has decided what to buy and had it delivered to my daughters, neither of them are letting on as to what it is! ..........very frustrating, but it does mean I have to get my act together. After traipsing around Newton Abbot.... not the best place for shopping I came home and brought it of the internet............ not saying what I brought just in case Steve's decides to read this ................ not very likely he probably wouldn't know where to find it.
In the meantime Steve was back up the cottages getting the bathroom walls prepared for tiling, checking the animals and shutting the chickens in, we lost 5 chickens to the fox last week including Christmas Dinner ................. a rather large young cock bird we had earmarked for Christmas! neither mind we can always have Pork after all we have three pigs in the freezer.

Long time no Blog

2010-12-03T11:11:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I have written anything on the blog, mainly due to having a bit of a rough time of it lately.

Steve's Dad had been ill for some time and had been in a care home for a while, he was taken ill a couple of weeks ago and past away very shortly after. The funeral was on Tuesday and everything went well despite it being very cold at least it wasn't snowing.

Obviously we haven't done much work over the past few weeks just the essentials, feeding, poo picking, general husbandry, we are nearly up to date with the ADE and Fasinex treatment just the Llama team to go, hopefully tomorrow.

We had a little bit of snow yesterday and as our roads don't get treated we have a treacherous journey to our fields each morning, nothing like you guys up north though. We live on a hill and have to go both directions, the decision each morning is either up hill or down either way it is icy.

The Alpacas and llamas are all looking good they don't seem to mind this cold dry weather, they are eating a good deal of hay and what with their mix of concentrate and Alfalfa which is very dry they are drinking a good deal of water, which seems to be freezing up as soon as it is in the bucket.

Murphy and his Mum Jazz

A couple of weeks ago I was driving up to the fields to put the chickens away just as the sun was setting, I drove up onto the moor and got a couple of pictures. I also managed to get some of our Llama cria Murphy who is growing into a fine you llama, he has such a lovely nature and I am sure he is going to be easy to train
.

Merlin has also been on a few walks and is doing very well, he has had a break from training over the past few weeks so this afternoon we put him into a catch pen, haltered him, he now tries to put his nose into the halter (his aim is a bit hit and miss) he had a small blanket on his back and we put a strap under his belly..... he wasn't to sure about that bit.

Merlin and Steve

The weather is causing chaos with our Christmas sales, Village Market in Widecombe last Saturday it was so cold and dull nobody much about, Leusdon Coffee morning on Wednesday was much better almost three times as much sold and tomorrows Christmas fair at Buckland has been canceled. so thats all of our sales opportunities gone for this year. No doubt we will have several phone calls asking for socks and yarn for pressies before Christmas but we won't sell the normal volume of stock.

Steve and I have something special coming up next week which I may tell you about later, so I am desperately trying to get ready for Christmas before that. I have written and posted all the business Christmas cards, written most of the personal cards, some of the presents have been bought but not wrapped yet, food shopping list is started..... not sure when the actual shopping is going to be scheduled in! Menu's are in the planning stage, we have a big family gathering on the 27th so that needs to be catered for as well and just to keep us busy we took all the tiles of the wall in one of the cottages today so that needs to be retiled next week......... can't think why we did that!.

Ugh!

2010-11-12T15:45:00.000-08:00

It has been wet, cold and windy all day here on Dartmoor, we had to cancel a walked planned for today. Went off to buy tiles for one of the bathrooms in the holiday cottages instead. Hope it improves for tomorrow as we have some people coming to look at animals!

A bit of a odd week.

2010-11-11T14:05:00.000-08:00

It has been a bit of an odd week really, not much to report on the Alpaca/Llama front really.

Monday weather forecast was terrible but it turned out not too bad, but as we had listen to the forecast, put off any work we had planned, Merlin and Blackjack got a bit of training, we went to town and caught up with lots of banking stuff. We took the opportunity to have lunch out, visit friends and pick up animal feeds, visit more friends and had dinner out!.
Tuesday Steve had a recall appointment about his hip resurfacing operation, they wanted to discuss blood results from some tests that they hadn't actually done yet ! good old NHS we went all the way to Plymouth for a blood test that could have been done in our local surgery. As we were in Plymouth we had time to visit an old friend which meant we had lunch out............. think there is some sort of pattern here.
Wednesday actually a very nice day here on Dartmoor, Steve had work all day (good job one of had) and helping administer some wormer and ADE to his customers Alpacas, they were animals we sold earlier this year and we offer help with husbandry as part of our ongoing support. I managed a couple of hours of work in the morning then went to a spinning workshop ........ needed to start using some of the fleeces I have left.
Today again the weather forecast was bad, but they were right this time, wind has been terrible, wet first thing but better later, Steve has been replacing the heated towel rail in one of the cottages and tried to organise the materials ready for putting in the services for our new camera system in the birthing paddock and shelter.
I have spent the day attending a meeting of Devon farms, who we advertise our holiday cottages with, they hare launching an online booking system and I was involved with training some of the members to use the new system............. now my brain hurts, it is not used to so much work!
We have Llama walks booked in over the weekend and the forecast does not look too could so fingers crossed they are wrong!!

All drenched and jabbed

2010-11-07T12:43:00.000-08:00

We decided to have quite an early start this morning as I was planning a shopping trip with youngest daughter.

We got all the female Alpacas and the two cria that are still with their mums into the handling pen ready for their ADE jabs and their Liver Fluke drench. Only one of them managed to cough up any of the drench my technique must be improving, in fact they all behaved impeccably except Stephano who is definitely his mothers son, Lily is our most neurotic female by far and Stephano has inherited this trait. Unfortunately he is the only one in the herd who is showing any sign of fibre loss, just around his feet, a little oil and ivomec rubbed onto the affected area should sort out the problem.

That little chore over and onto the main event..........shopping.....I hate it especially clothes shopping.... all that changing in little cubicles, those mirrors in there are a nightmare just like the hall of mirrors at the funfair!!!
Anyway it was a fruitless task as the only thing I liked was far to much for a dress that I would only wear once. So four weeks to go and still nothing to wear! we had a nice lunch though.

We stopped off at Lakeham Alpacas on the way home to pick up some bags of feed, on the way Linzi thought the car was making strange noises, difficult to hear over the CD player but I had to agree that there was a loud bumping noise coming from the engine. Luckily we were just up the road from Lakeham, so after scrabbling on the floor looking under the front of the car it was obvious that the engine cover was hanging off and dragging on the road. So call the RAC and have a cup of tea while waiting for the patrol man who was in the area to arrive and remove offending cover so I could get home. Just need to take the car to our usual mechanic to get it repaired now, so really it wasn't a very successful shopping trip!

Alpaca update and Traveling Ted

2010-11-06T13:29:00.000-07:00

It’s a while since I have updated the blog , a fact that I have been reminded of by several of my friends and readers of this blog. As I told them sometimes I go to update the blog but with so much going on that I can’t or wouldn’t want to write about I don’t know where to start.

It is a quiet time here with the Alpacas and Llamas, just routine husbandry really, poo picking, toe nail trimming etc etc. We decided to send some poo samples off to be analysed by the lab rather than just treating for worms routinely. We were very encouraged with the results only one animal showed a worm burden and one of our cria showed a heavy Coccidal oocysts. So both of these animals have been treated as well as the cria in that group, we will do another set of tests in three weeks time.

The whole herd Alpacas and llamas will be having a ADE jab over the next week as well as a drench for Liver Fluke, this will complete their routine treatments for this year.

Over the half term we had a visit from our Grandsons and a bear call traveling Ted, Ted normally lives at Josh's school but sometimes he is allowed to go home with one of the pupils. Ted has to have a record of his activities whilst he is away from school and as you can see from the photos he had a very eventful time.

Ted in the Wheel barrow

Ted & the Alpacas

Ted collecting eggs

Ted on the Tractor

I can assure you that Ted did have a good wash before he went back to school not sure I should publish the pictures of Ted in the washing machine!

Been away for a while

2010-10-04T15:12:00.000-07:00

Well not actually away, just not been blogging for a while. It has been the usual round of work, animals, walks and cottages, I keep thinking it will get a bit calmer soon but ha ho!

We have lots of things going on at home as well which you really don't want to hear about but it has meant I have less time to sit on the computer.

So what's new here!
Training has been going well with Merlin, he walks very well now, has a halter on but is not keen on putting his nose into it, you have to play catch my nose if you can for a while before he decides you can put in on. We have started to put a blanket on his back just to get him used to having something there. So now we try to introduce him to things he will come across when he is trekking such as cars. On our morning walk down the lane we stop and look at the cars on the main road, it is quite good as cars coming up the road can be seen coming but the ones coming down just appear suddenly from behind the hedge. Merlin seems to take this in his stride and is not that bothered about them, on the way back we walk back past our car, open and close the doors etc, he is not as keen on that little exercise.

Murphy is growing a pace, he is now 14 weeks old and he is huge, Jazz his mum is losing a bit of condition so is getting extra rations but I think we may need to wean him a bit earlier than usual. We had him in the handling pen today and had a good look at him, he is very strong, good straight limbs should be ideal for trekking, he has a lovely calm temperament as well. As you can see from his picture he is full of himself, defiantly thinks he's in charge

The girls have been moved onto some fresh grass which they much appreciated, the field they have now on has been rested since the hay was cut, so it is nice and long and lush. They certainly didn't want any concentrate anyway. The cria including Murphy found the whole thing really exciting, charging around like lunatics.

The Llamas on the other hand are onto the hay in a big way, they seem to have plenty of grass but they like their hay. They are having a restful time at the moment as we don't have any walks for a while.

We went to the SWAG vets day last week which was very informative and a good chance to catch up with the gossip, nice lunch as well.

Then I went to Cold harbour Mill last Saturday for their open day, I took our neighbour who is going to teach me to weave this winter. Audrey was a textile teacher before she retired so she was interested in what Jon Arbon is doing at Cold Harbour. We had a tour around the workings of the mill while Jon talked us through the process from fleece to yarn. I could resist buying some sock yarn in anticipation of the darker evenings.

So up todate now we had the girls scanned today and as expected Midnight scanned not pregnant as did her mother Ella. It is getting rather late to breed now so if we can't get them to the males this week we will leave them till next year. Everyone else scanned pregnant except Jazz the llama but then she scanned negative last year and we now have Murphy, so who knows!

Whilst Colin was here to scan the girls I got him to put the chips into this years youngsters so now just need to do the paperwork!

All for now will try not to be away for as long now.

Over for another year

2010-09-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

Well that's Widecombe fair over for another year. It was a pretty miserable day, typical Dartmoor weather, mist and drizzle. We had set up the stall on Monday evening so it was just a matter of installing the animals in their pen and putting out the knitwear, yarns and socks. The crowds were well down on last year and we can put that down to the weather.

Once set up there was time for a spot of breakfast.

The boys settled down very nicely, only Lenny the Llama had been to the show before, the Alpacas are all last years crop of boys. They drew a good crowd during the day prompting all the usual questions, we are lucky in the fact that we are the only Alpacas/Llamas at the show.

My daughter and grandchildren came along for the day and Josh is pictured below taking part in the Dartmoor Hill Pony display, I think he is supposed to be a miner showing that the Dartmoor pony was once use down the mines.

As you can see he is thoroughly enjoying himself and he has only been on a pony once before!

The worst part of going to shows where the weather is wet is the packing up and getting everything dry, as you can imagine I now have all the stock off the stand spread all over the spare room.

While I had the camera handy, something I don't do often enough, I took some pictures of Steve's latest work project. Since giving up being employed Steve has returned to Landscaping all be it part time.
He gets to do a large range of jobs but I think some of his walling is the best.

Today I moved the pregnant females to a clean paddock they had been getting a little short of grass as we were waiting for a late crop of hay to be pick up. They are so easy to move as there is a drift between the two paddocks so I could just open up all the gates and just let them run from one, down the drift and into the next. As the hay had only just been picked up they have plenty of long grass around the edges of the fields and in some of the less accessible corners. They clearly were impressed by having something decent to eat that they didn't bother with the concentrate I offered them or rather bribed them with.

This afternoon we had a Llama walk with a cream tea, it was only two people so we took the opportunity to take one of the younger Alpacas with us. We are always amazed when we take the out for the first time, it doesn't seem to faze them. Today it was the turn of Quartz or it could have been Felspar as we still can't tell them a part, he walked really well didn't jump about and even allowed cuddles during the walk. A great trekking Alpaca in the making!

Merlin will not go to the fair.

2010-09-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

Merlin has been having a five minute training session most mornings since he arrived at Dartmoor Llamas. All this training has paid off as he is now a very calm young llama, We can catch him in the pen by laying a rope over his back, he now tries to put his nose into the headcollar although his aim isn't too good yet. He walks well on a lead and we have been going on short walks up and down the lane with one of the other llamas for company. We have introduced him to cars, open and closing the doors with him in close proximity, going in and out of gates, even meeting a neighbor in the lane with their dog. He does still get jumpy sometimes but he is getting more confident all the time. We were thinking of taken him to Widecombe fair tomorrow with some of the younger alpaca boys but it is a long day and if he doesn't settle to it we can't get him home until the end of the day, so for this year he will stay at home.

Widecombe fair is our local show, it is a very long established fair famous for Uncle Tom Cobley and all, it is a truly local fair with many unique events. We have been taking some animals to this show for a few years now and we always have a great day. We set up the stall tonight and will load the boys in the morning, we are taking Felspar, Quartz and Calypso who are up for sale as a package, Atlas and Titan who we have shown this year with great success and to represent the llamas side of the operation will be the old timer Lenny. Lenny is great at shows as he will allow stroking even cuddling, never gets upset and can be mischievous and entertaining, has been know to flip the water bucket over onlookers feet.
It will be a long day but it is a great time to catch up with neighbors who we haven't seen all summer.

Typical Dartmoor Weather!

2010-09-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

We had to cancel our llama walk this morning due to the unpredictable Dartmoor weather. We woke up to torrential rain and when I was finally brave enough to look out of the window it was obvious that we wouldn't be going out on the moor, the mist was really thick and there was that heavy drizzle just to make it even more miserable.

I rang the customer to give them the option of starting later or postponing as our walks are supposed to be fun and I don't find walking around on the moor in the rain much fun and walking up there in the mist is just plain stupid and we don't do it.

The upshot of canceling the walk is we had a proper Sunday, no rush to feed up, I picked some veggies in the mist, put loads of veg in the freezer, did some ironing in front of the TV and even cooked a roast dinner. As we were eating our roast we realised that everything on the plate was our own produce, Potatos, carrots, turnips, french beans, courgettes and pork from our last lot of pigs........not bad and it tasted good as well.

We moved the young alpacas and Merlin into a paddock next to the trekking team in preparation to amalgamating the two groups which will give us more flexibility for walks and training. Merlin is at a stage now that he will benefit from being taken out with some of the older llamas as he will learn from them. We were really pleased with him this morning as he actually put his nose into the halter when we presented it to him........... quite a milestone really.

A well earned brake

2010-09-04T15:11:00.000-07:00

We finally managed to get a week off, my niece got married last week end in Maidstone so we took the opportunity and took the week off. After the wedding we spent a few days touring around Kent, stayed on a farm on the North downs, did a historic tour of Canterbury which was really interesting. Once we had 'done' kent we headed off to Oxford, did the tourist bit, eat out a lot and finished off with a day at Blenheim Palace before returning home today.
To get a whole week away took some organising, someone to do the changeovers in the cottages, someone to check and feed the animals, I did begin to wonder if it was all going to be worth it but once on the road I was OK. That was until my daughter (who was in charge of animals) rang to say ' is it normal for Lennie to let you walk up to him and let you stroke his head' panic---------No it isn't I said, I suggested she got some feed in a bucket and see if he was interested in that before I packed my bags again and got back in the car. Ten minutes later, phone rang--------daughter said ' it's Ok I walked up to him and he winked at me, got up and eagerly ate the food from the bucket', seems he had been sunbathing and really couldn't be bothered to get up. I asked for an update the following morning when it was reported that everything was normal.
I had diverted the phone to my mobile, took my diary and computer so I could keep in touch with everything including fellow bloggers. During the week we had a variety of calls, there was the guy who rung to ask where Dartmoor Llamas where based and would it be Ok if they arrived in about 10 minutes for a llama walk, he wasn't too impressed when I told him I was in Kent and wouldn't be able to get there in 10 minutes!
Anyway arrived back this morning, dropped bags off and then straight to the fields to see how everyone faired with out us, pigs looked fine-----then they really weren't bothered who fed them. Chickens all survived and looked fine, chicks have grown and are about twice the size there were last week. Then to the trekking team, they actually looked pleased to see us, we called out as we got to the gate and they all came running up to us, Polo came right up to me and sniffed my face and Lennie didn't let me get anywhere near stroking his head, I am sure he was just angling for more food.
The young Alpacas and Merlin the young Llama did seem bothered that we were home-------Merlins training will restart in the morning.
Once the animal inspections were over, a quick check on the feed situation revealed a trip to Mole Valley Farmers ( Steve's favorite retail outlet) was needed, Pig food, cat food, Steve food needed.
All of a sudden a week off seems a long time ago, Llama walk tomorrow.

Broadsiding ponies

2010-08-27T15:21:00.000-07:00

Just thought I might share this picture of Calypso broadsiding a Dartmoor foal whilst out on a Llama walk this week. The picture really doesn't do it justice, we were walking back to the carpark after enjoying our picnic lunch on the top of Yar tor , the llamas were having a munch on a hawthorn tree, Calypso who isn't much interested in hawthorn was just stood with his handler waiting when a little foal approach, Calypso really wasn't sure about this and presented a broadside display to the foal, who not speaking the same language just carried on approaching until he was in sniffing distance, sniffed and decided it wasn't a funny looking pony so ran off to find its mum.

We have been busy with walks this week and the weather has mostly been dry if not sunny. The gorse and heather is looking amazing at the moment, I have tried to get a picture of it but it is not easy to get the true colours.

We have returned Nugget and Caliban to Lakeham Alpacas as we have finished our breedings for this year. We have decided to put Langaton Caliban up for sale as we don't have that many light coloured Alpacas to use him on now, so we will be looking for a Black or Grey stud male for next year s breeding program. Also up for sale is West Webburn Titan a young dark brown male who was placed first at Devon County Show and a third at SWAG this year. The only other animals we have for sale at the moment are a group of three young males who are being sold as a package for ridiculously low price. we are very short of land so at some point we have to sell something, but I can always find a reason not to sell any of them.

All the females have returned to Widecombe for the autumn and winter, to grow their babies on the lovely fresh grass they have over there. They always seem to thrive, left to themselves except for a daily check from us to feed them and make sure they are all well. They come home in the spring about a month before the first cria is due. Having this facility allows us to rest the fields so we don't have a big parasite burden and the fields they go on to are only used for hay so they don't get a problem from there either. It is a bit of a pain having to travel over there to see them but it is worth it in the long run but the owners of the fields get to enjoy them all day. Oh for more land!

A face full of spit!

2010-08-20T13:22:00.000-07:00

As usual it has been a bit hectic what with holiday makers , work and the animals. Last Sunday we got all the female alpacas in weighed them and checked for any mite, trimmed any toe nails which needed to be done before putting them all past the males for a final spit off before taking them over to Widecombe for some fresh grass. Thankfully everyone we expected to spit off did, which is great as they are well and truly pregnant now, the first one due at the end of March next year. Demeter (96 import with attitude) jumped the hurdles last time we put her in with the male, this time she looked at him------- he stood in the corner looking the other way, she looked at me as I was guarding one side of the pen in anticipation of her jumping out again and gave me a full blown mouth full of the smelliest, greenest spit ever seen------------I think she may be pregnant!
We then loaded most of them into the trailer for the short journey to Widecombe where they will stay until spring. They are in a field which has been cut for hay several weeks ago and it now has a lovely lot of fresh grass. We held back a couple of Alpacas as they needed one more spit off, the two female llamas and of course Murphy, just because I don't want him to go just yet as he is growing so fast and is such a character.
In the afternoon we had a visit from my Mum & Dad, Sister and family, daughter and family and younger daughter, funny you don't see anyone for weeks and then they all turn up. It was a lovely afternoon and we went and introduce them to the llamas, alpacas, pigs and chickens before having a picnic in the field. Just what Sundays should be like.
We had to cancel a llama walk this morning as the weather was so foul, thick mist, rain and a howling gale not what you need for an enjoyable walk on Dartmoor. hopefully it will be better by Monday as we have a half day walk booked.
Merlin our young llama in training is coming along nicely, he is very calm and walks around the field very well now. It won't be long before he can be introduced to the trekking team and will start to come on short walks with us. Over the winter he will get lots of training on the moor where he will meet all sorts of new things and by next spring hopefully he will able to be part of the team, but not carry a pack until he is at least two years old.

Finally managed to take the camera

2010-08-16T03:33:00.000-07:00

I finally managed to take the camera out with me and I got some pictures of Murphy and Merlin

Murphy first, he is now 7 weeks old and is full of life and attitude, he really struts his stuff around the field. He is nearly as tall as our adult females so he towers over the Alpaca cria who are all older than him.

We have been putting a halter on him just to get him used to been handled, he is going to be very big and if he isn't well trained he will be a nightmare to work with.

Merlin is now reluctantly walking around the field each morning with his two mentors, Atlas and Titan are well used to walking on halters and Merlin doesn't want to be left behind, I am sure he will look more like he is enjoying the experience with a few more days training.

Merlin is much calmer whilst in the handling pen, he stands still once you put your hand on his neck, we can touch him all over his back and belly area which is important as he will be trained to take a pack system when he is older. I am touching his ears an mouth in preparation for any drenching that he may need. It will be so nice to have an animal who is easy to do all the husbandry on because if a llama doesn't want to do something is is a different proposition from an Alpaca.

Now it would be nice to get some up to date pictures of the Alpaca Cria.

I forgot another High

2010-08-14T15:14:00.000-07:00

We have managed to get Merlin our new young llama to have a halter on, he now stops when we put a rope over his back, will take a halter and is starting to walk around the pen when asked too, not quite as good at walking around the field following the alpacas though but that will come over the next few days. We are getting him used to having his sides and tummy touched in preparation for having a pack on. It is great to see the progress he has made from being a scared little llama never handled to accepting that we aren't going to hurt him and learning new things every day-------he no longer runs out of the pen when his lesson is over often just standing there until we leave him! Must get some pics of him!

Highs and Lows

2010-08-14T14:50:00.000-07:00

10 days since my last blog and I have had several comments from certain quarters about my lack of blogging. My only excuses are lack of time and not really knowing what to say!.

The highs have been that we have had our busiest week ever for llama walks, not that we have done more walks then usual but we managed to combine several groups together meaning we could take more animals out and I have to prepare more lunches, cakes and our famous cream teas.

We had a lovely day at the Honiton show, great weather and we came home with a 3rd and a 4th Rosette, met lots of lovely people and spent all day talking Alpaca -------what could be better!

We have started to get enquires for our cottages for the Autumn, we are full until the end of September (except for 6 nights) and have already got bookings for October, November and next year. So thats looking really healthy, I am now looking at what advertising has worked best this year and where I should be looking to target for next year. This is work I usually save for rainy days but we haven't had that many of those lately, not that I am moaning about that although the grass could do with it ------ never satisfied are we.

The lows---------- we lost an Alpaca this week--- Himma was a gelding we inherited when our friends decided to return to Wiltshire and we took over their herd. He was the first cria they had born and he was over handled as a youngster, to be honest he was a pain in the neck as he got older--------- what started as being quite cute and amusing started to turn into threatening behavior as he got older. When he was about two years old he got a kick from a llama shattering his shoulder, the vet operated on him but I think he was always in a little pain and he did tend to sit down a lot. Anyway last Sunday we had been out on a walk and when we got back we noticed he looked a little bit off colour, nothing you could put your finger on but just not right. We took the decision to see how he was in the morning whilst putting him in the shelter for the night. Any way Monday morning he was dead, I felt so bad I should have rung the Vet but knowing Alpacas - if they look sick it is probably to late. We arranged for a Postmortem which revealed nothing conclusive but did confirm that it wasn't anything nasty which could affect the rest of the herd.

Himma was always a reminder to us not to over handle young cria especially males they can become a problem (BMS Berserk Male Syndrome) which may not show up until they adolescents and they start to treat humans as they would other alpacas which we all know is not alway pleasant. We do routine husbandry with the cria as we do the adults and we have bottle fed several cria but it is strictly feed the bottle and leave alone. Once they are weaned they are handled everyday until they are halter trained and are behaving calmly, easy to catch in a pen and can be stroked once caught without them trying to escape. All the young males get to go on walks with our trekking llamas who are all calm and well behaved which they seem to pass on to the youngsters.

I also remember the advice from an experienced breeder when we were first looking at buying our first Alpacas-------- "beware of over friendly Alpacas it isn't their natural behavior"

North Devon Show

2010-08-04T12:31:00.001-07:00

Just got back from avery successful show, the weather was very wet this morning delaying the start of the halter classes. We had only entered fleeces this year as we are showing a couple of animals tomorrow at Honiton show. We got a 1st place with West Webburn Atlas’s fleece, he was a junior when he was shorn and has worn a couple of ribbons earlier this year. Atlas a fawn scored highly on his fleece weight, fineness and handle and his lack of guard hair. Lack of guard hair had been commented on in previous shows so we were pleased to see him highly scored on this element. West webburn Titan got 4th in his class although the black and brown had been combined. He also scored very highly on fineness and handle but lost marks on his fleece weight. I think I may have over skirted this one as I wasn’t sure what to remove and what not too.

Anyway as a first attempt we are really pleased with the results.

On a different note we have managed to get a halter on Merlin the new Llama without much fuss. We have spent the last couple of weeks just gaining his trust and although he is still a bit jumpy he will let me put the halter on and do it up with out moving about. We let him keep the halter on for a few hours just to get used to it, the next stage will be leading him around the pen.

More Ramblings from Dartmoor

2010-08-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

Following another busy week I have finally sat down to write something in the blog, so now I can't remember what we have been so busy doing.
ahh yes it was Totnes show last weekend so we set up the stall on the Saturday afternoon ready for the show on Sunday. This is the first time that they have held the show on a Sunday but as the traffic queues were so bad on a Thursday the decision to change days was made. We had a combined stall with Lakeham Alpacas and Bats brook Alpacas and we took some Llamas as well. To keep to the best bio security arrangements we could, Bats brook had a pen on one side of the Marquee and we had ours on the other side, so the animals were unable to see each other let alone get within spitting distance. As it is a small show we were the only Alpaca stand there. The sun shone and there were lots of people around although it was very slow to start with, I think as it was a Sunday people got up a little later before coming in but they stayed much later and it was after 6pm before we thought about packing up. The rest of the week has been the usual round of feeding up, picking up poo, holiday cottages and a lovely llama walk yesterday.

We or rather Steve has been doing some handling every morning with Merlin the young llama and has got to the stage where we thought we could get him to take a halter. Firs I showed him the halter and let him sniff it then put the nose band over his nose and just let it rest for a while. He took this well but drew the line at letting me do it up, he is still very jumpy and I think it is going to be a long process but we are getting there. I really must get some pictures of this young boy for you to see, her really is very handsome!

Later this morning we had a visit from Inca Picasso from Blacklands Alpacas for a drive by breeding with Marietta. We had been trying to get Midnight covered by Picasso but for some reason she wasn't too keen, but would sit if you put her in with our Stud Golden Nugget who we had been using for spit offs. So we made the decision to let her have here way with Nugget and to try Picasso over the very reliable Marietta, who is a much more willing partner, she sat when I let her into the breeding pen and Picasso was only half way down the M5 at the time. so fingers crossed we won't have to take her to Blacklands next week for a repeat meeting.

Just after Blacklands left for home we had some people turn up for a look around and discuss keeping Alpacas which was great as we don't need much encouragement to talk Alpaca all afternoon.

What defines a spit off?

2010-07-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

We did spit offs with all the females today in anticipation of sending the girls back to Widecombe for fresh grass.
We have such a range of so called spit offs.

Firstly Lily who when she is ready to breed sits immediately so if she runs away from the male she is usually pregnant and boy did she run but no spit.
Next up Bramble who is another sitter, one spit and then looks to get out of the pen.
Phoebe who just glares at the male, which in this case was Golden Nugget and he stood with his back to her not interested.
So looks like those three are pregnant.
Next up Ella who nearly climbed over the hurdles to get away.
Cassini who runs around and looks like a scared Rabbit.
So they look promising.
But the best spit off today goes to Demeter our old girl 1996 import sold to us with the comment she has attitude.
We put her in with Caliban, she took one look at him and jumped from a standing start over the the alpaca hurdles and ran at full pelt across the field. Would you call that a spit off?
That just leaves Midnight and Marietta.
Marietta will be going to Inca Picasso in a couple of weeks, As for Midnight, she really hasn't got a clue about spit offs, we are not sure if she is spitting off or sitting as she can do both at once.
If they all go according to plan we will be having a very busy spring next year.

Whilst we had the girls in we weighed the crias and they are all putting on weight nicely and they are full of energy.

Merlin our new llama seems to be settling down, he is not looking to get out of the field all the time now. He will also eat food from a bucket that I am holding but still doesn't like to be touched. He does seem interested in watching the other young boys being haltered and lead so hopefully he will look and learn.

Sad Farewell

2010-07-18T14:55:00.000-07:00

We said goodbye to Toledo yesterday, he was our Stud male Llama and as we only have one female llama for him to breed with we decided he was wasted here. He has gone to live in Cornwall where he will have lots of females to entertain. Having Toledo here had become difficult, we couldn’t take him on treks which meant we had to leave another llama or Alpaca with him when we went out, this obviously meant we were a llama down in the trekking team.

In exchange we have brought home a seven month old male llama who we are hoping to train for trekking. Once home we put the young male now named Merlin (as he comes from Cornwall) in to a paddock with last years young male Alpacas but Merlin only had one thing on his mind which was finding his mum and eventually this morning he worked out how to get through the wire of our fence. Once he had worked out how to do it there was no keeping him in so he is now in the yard with a companion until he settles down this usually takes a couple of days. I will try to get some pictures tomorrow, he may be calmer by then.

Now we have all the young boys together we can start to do some training with them so they to can all be taken for walks on the moors.
We will miss toledo very much as he has been part of our lives since he was 6 months old, we have his half brother Blackjack who has been pacing the fence line today so he is missing him too. I am sure Merlin will settle in nicely and become part of the trekking team.

Hospital visit

2010-07-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

We took two llamas, Lenny and Polo and Logan the Alpaca to Wonford House hospital this morning. The rain held off for most of the time we were there. I always fine these trips amazing, just to see how within an hour the llamas can make friends with so many very nervous people. One guy was so nervous he wouldn't even stroke Lenny on the neck, Lenny is so calm and nothing upsets him, anyway by the end of the morning the guy was leading him around the grounds of the hospital and feeding Lenny treats.
We are only there for such a short while and I come away feeliing very proud about the way the animals behave. They really seem to have an empathy with people with special needs or disabilities.

I spent the afternoon make a couple of batches of Scones and a very yummy orange and Almond cake, did some of the holiday cottage ironing and then sorted out some fleeces to send away for carding in preparation for my weaving lessons this winter.

This evening we did another spit off with our female Llama 'Jazz' and 'Toledo' we were surprised when she gave birth this year so it would be wonderful if she could do it again next year. We had arranged to swop Toledo for a young male that we could train up for trekking, so we wanted to breed Jazz before he left, so fingers crossed.

Our Stud males are coming back tomorrow from Lakeham Alpacas we will put all the females who had been spitting off back to the boys, just to check they are still rejecting, before sending them off to fresh grass in Widecombe where they will stay for the winter. That will leave us with just three females to finish our breedings this year.

Not much time for blogging

2010-07-13T13:02:00.000-07:00

Well it has been a long time since I have had time to sit down and update this blog. Today it did rain as forecast, but not a lot.
All the Llamas and Alpacas are looking good, although the grass here is looking a bit thin, we are giving hay ad lib and the usual concentrate.

We weighed all the females and cria last weekend and the youngsters are all gaining weight. The little Llama cria "Murphy" is great, full of energy just like a jack in a box, he charges around the field barging into the females who give him short shift. He is very strong now and has a lot of character, thinks he's the bees knees.

It has been the usual round of work, holiday cottages, llama walks and field maintenance, Steve's three day week is working OK, so today we had a day off!!!! ---------------so after strimming around the chicken fences, cleaning out the chicken houses, putting up some bean sticks, spreading so Rooster booster, it was coffee time, then Steve took some belt things off the Flail mower which needed replacing, filled the car up with some rubbish to go to the tip, had lunch .....................then off to Newton Abbot to go to the bank via Tuckers to get some gate hinges, Mole Valley Farmers for pig food, find somewhere to buy the new belts for the mower etc etc, ................I think this is what is called a day off !!!! Oh I did get to see the Grandchildren for about half an hour.

We have had some lovely llama walks over the past couple of weeks, the weather has been perfect, we have met lots of lovely people and ate loads of lovely picnics............. so much for the diet !
Tomorrow we are taking some of the llamas to visit Wonford hospital, this is something we do regularly and is a lovely experience for the patients as well as us.

Now that was a bit of a surprise or two

2010-06-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

Over a week since my last blog, the hot sunny weather is still with us and this has brought out the tourists and the campers although Steve did see a little more of one camper than he really wanted. He was driving to the fields ahead of me one morning when he caught site of a naked man diving back into his tent which for some unknown reason he had decided to pitch right next to the road, obviously been out for his morning constitutional, good job he wasn't a couple of seconds earlier he would have got a proper eye full.

With the tourists we get the usual mix of idiots that can't reverse, the ones that stop without warning to photograph a sheep but the best are the ones who seek you out to tell you that there is a cow in the road and are amazed when you tell them that they are supposed to be out loose as they are grazing on common land. The worst kind are the ones who let their dogs off the lead, let them chase after our llamas whilst we are out on a walk and then when you ask if they can put it on the lead they tell you "it is OK their dog wouldn't chase anything". Not sure who's fault it would be if one of the llamas kicked their dog?

Tuesday morning we got another surprise when Steve was feeding the females he discovered that Jazz had produced a cria. Jazz one of our llamas was breed last year but had a negative scan, we introduced her to ur male earlier this year and we had a very obvious rejection, not much difference from when she was put to the male last year so we thought that she just wasn't going to breed. A couple of weeks ago we noticed that she had a bit of an udder but still weren't sure as she didn't look any different size wise. Any way a lovely male cria but very weak and flat and a very over protective mum, we couldn't get near without being cover with spit and she meant it. In the end I managed to get a halter on her and Steve lead her up to the field shelter whilst I carried the baby.

Once in we penned Jazz and I was able to milk off some colostrum which we fed to the little one, I did this a couple of times and also gave him a little glucose. By late afternoon he was up and suckling but very wobbly so we left them in the shelter as it was very hot and they had some shade in there. He was much stronger by the next morning so they both went back to join the herd, Jazz much calmer and cria the object of much attention from the alpacas and their cria. He has gone from strength to strength and is now playing with the three alpaca cria although he is already much bigger than them all, he looks like a little deer when he runs around as he is brown and grey on top with his underside being white with black spots. It has been hard thinking of a name for him, father warrior, mother jazz, grandfather Zulu - we came up with Michael as Michael Caine was in Zulu ! Duke after Duke Ellington!, Shaka after a Zulu king............ and then settled on Murphy!

Friday we did some spit offs with Nugget and Caliban before returning them to Lakeham Alpacas for a few weeks. Mike and Liz had a cria from Nugget born that morning so we had a good look at her, lovely, same colour as our Nugget male cria born last weekend. All our females are now spitting off except for Midnight and Marietta who will be mated when boys return.

We have had some lovely walks with the llamas over the last week the weather has been great lovely and warm with just enough breeze to make for comfortable walking, lovely picnics and great company, I have to remind myself that this is work!

What a week that was!

2010-06-21T14:23:00.000-07:00

The trouble with this lovely sunny weather, there is so much work to be done, not forgetting the Alpaca watching especially in the evenings. We seem to get in later and later ......I don't seem to have much time for blogging.
The girls have spent a lot of time sun bathing flat out...... all looking like dead Alpacas...........
We did get a day off Friday and went to Exeter for a little shopping and to arrange something for later in the year (more about that later).
Saturday we gave the llamas and the Stud Males their Lambivac injections, enlarged the pig pen as the three weaners have almost doubled in size, ran the hoe over the veg garden etc. All this before taking Caliban over to Tower Park Alpacas for a return visit to one of their females (Pearl ) who adamantly spat off mainly down Steve' s shirt....... so Caliban back in the trailer ready to go back home after helping Rolly give the Lambivac injections to Willow, Pearl and Sparky. It was such a lovely afternoon just right for sharing a bottle of wine in the garden with Rolly & Jo before checking out the new arrivals, a couple of Runner Ducks.......... I really would like some!
Hopefully their pearl will spit off again next week as Caliban and Nugget will be returning to Lakeham Alpacas for a while.

Marietta and Cria

We finally managed to get the weighing scales set up on Sunday, we got all the girls into a holding pen and one by one we weighed all the females. Whilst they were confined in the race we gave them their lambivac injections as well. Marietta (340 days) came running in to the pen with the rest of the girls and although we didn't stress her by weighing her we did give her a jab and then let her back into the field and carried on with the rest of the girls. I went to let the next girl out and noticed Marietta had decided to give birth and the head and the legs were already out.......... no hanging around for her then. By the time I had weighed and jabbed the final two girls......... she had delivered a lovely brown male cria. Marietta has been such a reliable female, her last cria Atlas was born 360 days before this one and the previous one Calypso 372 day before that. She always lets us know when she is ready to be mated by sitting next to the pen whilst other matings are going on. Both her last cria have been placed in the show ring and this one looks the best yet, sired by Caton Golden Nugget, his fleece looks great, he has been named Golden Prospect and we are really pleased with him.

Prospect and Stefano

Talking about females letting you know when they are ready, Lily who gave birth just over two weeks ago to Stefano, sat next to the breeding pen on Sunday so I opened the gate and in she came, sat down, so we put Golden Nugget over her, she is not quite as reliable as Marietta but if she is ready who are we to argue!

After all this excitement we had to take Midnight up to Blacklands Alpacas for a mating with Inca Picasso, she is our champion black girls .......a maiden who has taken a bit of time to work out what it was all about..........I think she got it this time as Picasso certainly took his time. That means we only have Marietta left to bred for next year and I am sure she won't want to hang around!

We've had a great weekend as well!

2010-06-13T11:19:00.000-07:00

We have had a great weekend here in sunny Devon, starting with a lovely walk on Friday with the llamas. We had a friend come to see us on Friday to go out for a llama walk so we decided to go to Hammeldown which is just above Widecombe in the moor and the views from there are spectacular, it is a great walk as it is mostly flat or gentle slopes, easy walking with views to either side of the ridge. We packed up a ploughmans lunch, some tea or coffee and homemade cake and off we went, lovely sunny day, bit of a breeze .....what could be better! It was so good we were over an hour late getting back and we had arranged to go up to Dorset for a charity event as it was we arrived just to hear the last five minutes of the talk which was followed by a "ploughmans" supper and some very nice Dorset Apple cake.

Saturday was another lovely day, quite hot in the afternoon so after turning one of the holiday cottages around ready for the next guests I went to see Tania at Caton Alpacas to do a bit of fleece skirting. I am going to enter some of our fleeces into the North Devon show, this will be the first time and although I have do some fleece judging and scoring on Alpaca assessment courses, I had never prepared a fleece for a show. We did two of my fleeces and two of Tania's and I think we may do a few more next week. All I need to do now is actually remember to send the entry form off !

Last night I had a very strange experience, I went to a school reunion, it was for my year at secondary school who have or will be having a rather large birthday in this school year. Well I hardly recognized anyone but by the end of the evening I had managed to work out who most of them were or at least recognized their names.

Today, yet another warm and sunny day we had the grandsons helping with the morning feeding, so that took twice as long as usual. Charlie wants to help with everything and Josh wants to sleep with the pigs! not sure why.

This afternoon we had a booking for a cream tea walk, so we took Lenny, Polo and Logan out and we had a great walk, lovely people, good conversation. We went to our favorite place for a cream tea on Yar Tor which sits above Dartmeet, it is so quiet up there, the view is great and the skylarks were singing away, what could be better, I really must remember to take the camera with me next time. After the walk we all went back to the Alpaca field to see the little cria born last week which has now been named Stephano, his sire is Langaton Caliban so we have followed on the 'The Tempest' theme! , we are still waiting for Marietta to give birth she is now 333 days and is looking very heavy, spending a lot of time sitting down.

Cria's Cria's everywhere!

2010-06-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

From reading fellow bloggers there are lots of cria's arriving now all very exciting!. I have tried to get some decent pictures of Lily's little cria but I either get Mica in the way or cut some ones head off but here is my attempt, Lily (or half of her anyway) with her cria closely followed by Mica.

We haven't decided on a name as yet but the little chap weighed in at 8.4kg and he is a very light fawn with a slightly darker tail, we weren't sure what to expect, Lily is a dark brown with what you might call "colour contamination" or she could just be going grey, father Langaton Caliban is white, you could call it an experiment, we were hoping for a darker colour but ha ho he is cute and will make a lovely pet or he could come trekking with the Llamas.

We are now waiting for Carla and Marietta to produce both mated to Catons Golden Nugget.

Tomorrow we will do the spit offs with the other girls if they are all going according to plan we will have early birthing season next year.

Piggies and a little surprise

2010-06-03T13:34:00.000-07:00

On Monday we collected our three little pigs, they are Berkshires and we have two boys and a girl. We drove up to Honiton to collect them from Smallicombe Farm and once the paperwork was completed we loaded them into the trailer, they seem pretty laid back about the whole process and when we arrived home and opened up the trailer they were all snuggled up together asleep.

They soon settled into their new home.

They are quite cute really, don't think I will be naming them as they are destined for the freezer.

After shearing on sunday I replaced the neck chain on Quartz as he looks even more like Felspar now, this worked well until yesterday when I went to check on the boys, Quartz has lost his necklace. Not sure how I am going to tell these two apart now!

Like Peas in a pod!

And the little surprise!

As I said our girls are just coming up to their due period, Carla and Marietta first the Lily....so I thought. Lily is alway a little difficult she never gives clear spit offs, she was mated several times last year and I am sure she sat in late July ............. at least my records show this. So it was a bit surprising when I got back to the fields this afternoon to find a cluster of females, I thought Marietta had given birth but then I saw a head hanging from Lily.........head..... no legs! as I was there on my own I had no chance of examining Lily to see what the position was.......... Then a really strange think happened, Lily walk right up to me, sniffed around my head and hands, Lily is usually the most flighty of all our girls and would never come anywhere near. A quick call to Richard our Vet and he was on his way, just as Steve pulled up in the landrover, so with an extra pair of hands I was able to check where the legs were and managed to ease them out. Finally a large male cria was delivered, very strong and sitting up within minutes. So another call to the Vet to stop him turning up!

We had planned a picnic tea in the field with the grandchildren this evening so we spent time with them and watching the cria at the same time, the little chap was up on his feet and suckling within an hour, in fact once he was on his feet his mum took him on a tour of the field examining the rolling spots, the gateways, every corner and finally the drinking trough all this with one of lily's daughter, grandaughter and a couple of other interested females in tow (why don't I have a camera when needed) . He is the first cria we have had from our Stud male Langaton Caliban so we are very excited to see what he is like, he certainly seems to have inherited his fathers head shape and there is loads of fleece around his face. I really need to take the camera with me in the morning.

Hopefully Carla and Marietta with follow Lily's lead and give birth quite soon!

Shearing Day, rain and sunshine

2010-05-30T12:22:00.000-07:00

After listening to the weather forecast last night we left the alpacas out last night as it was going to dry up and be sunny today. Not sure why I believed that as they said it would be dry yesterday afternoon when we had a llama walk and it rain all the time, cream tea in the rain sheltering under one of the Tors is an experience to say the least. the customers all thought it was fun though which is the main thing.

Any way I woke this morning to sunshine so pleased I made a cup of tea and went back to bed for a good read for about half an hour. By now it is pouring with rain, not much we could do now but hope that it didn't last long. Rain stopped and the breeze was blowing, the alpacas looked dry and fluffy and Colin rang to say he was running late due to the weather so plenty of time for them to be completely dry. Steve topped one of the fields while we waited, can't believe we are cutting grass like this, while our top paddocks aren't growing at all.

We had a lovely picnic lunch in the fields, the sun still shining, Colin arrived with Gaia in tow and set to work, they make the whole process look so easy and the job was soon done. I took the opportunity to give the Blue Tongue injections while they were restrained much easier than holding them.

We had a visit from Lucy who works at Paignton Zoo looking after the large cats and rhino, she was after some fleece to use with the lions and tigers, apparently they like to play with the fleece, it's the different smells they are most interested in, so Lucy left with several bags of leg and neck fleece and left us with a bag containing several bottles of wine. Not a bad exchange me thinks! There ought to be a competition for the strangest use for fibre

So we now have fields of lovely looking Alpacas I especially like the dark colours when they are shorn they look so elegant.

Our pregnant females are now coming upto their due dates and now they are without their fleece we can clearly see the crias moving around. The first one due is Carla she is just 10.5 months ironically she is the only one we didn't shear as she is an older girl and she did suffer a bit this winter, we put a coat on her for several weeks, she had not grown much fleece so we decided to leave her this year.

We are of to collect our pigs tomorrow and hopefully I can upload some pictures.

Devon county Show etc

2010-05-26T13:26:00.000-07:00

Devon county show last weekend was absolutely scorching hot, the Alpacas have been moved to a new site away from the Steam engines. There was loads of room for the pens to be spread out in the two large marquees. We took 3 males, Titan, Atlas and Calypso, I had entered Titan in the junior male class then realised that he was 12 months two days before the show which meant he was moved up a class, as he was over fleeced I didn't think he stood a chance up against the older males. I was delighted when he was placed first place, so he has had a third as a junior at the swag show, not bad as his dam is a 1996 import his sire is Alpha Saturn. Saturn is also the sire of the other two boys, Atlas took third in a very large fawn class and poor Calypso didn't get placed which has now sealed his fate and he will be castrated later in the year, we had been debating this for some time, he has a lovely bright crimpy fleece but it lacks some density. He will make a lovely pet or field guard and if he doesn't sell he can come on llama walks!

We are into our breeding program now, some of the girls are now spitting off, Cassini sat again some times these maidens are a bit of a problem, she seems to think she can lay on her side for the whole proceedings, not good!. Whilst all this was going on Bramble who we thought was due next month sat next to the pen, not a good sign she was scanned in September but not in March for some reason. Anyway we put Caliban in with her and she sat straight away so she was obviously not pregnant, strange I was convinced up to a couple of weeks ago, she looked heavy and quite rounded and I hadn't seen any signs of an abortion. Oh well these things happen!

We have just heard that our weaners are ready to be collected this weekend and as predicted the pig pen has not been built yet. I knew this would happen and have been saying for weeks that we need to get it done, so guess what we are doing at the weekend in between Shearing, Llama walk, Holiday cottage changeovers and Alpaca breedings, good job it is a bank holiday.

We have just taken a booking for a week next year which is good like to get guests to rebook before they leave, if they all did that I could save a fortune on advertising!

After weeks of moaning that the grass is not growing Steve had to cut the new field last night as some of it was above knee height (Steve's knees not mine, he's 6ft 3ins).

Got to go now and get the ironing done, I was going to make a batch of scones but have run out of flour.

Finally managed it!!!

2010-05-16T01:37:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to publish this blog since the weekend but there always seems to be something more important to do. So this one might go on a bit!.......

Well what's been happening here.

Our feisty game bird bantam with her 3 chicks is now in charge of movements in the top field. I let Jazz & Georgina the two female llamas out into the top track just as a precaution against visiting foxes, I thought! well Mrs Bantam didn't like this idea and promptly chase Georgina back into the field. She now has to pick her moment when trying to go along the top track to the veg garden where there is lots of fresh grass to eat. In the meantime Mrs Bantam has taken to demolishing the compost heap with her chicks in tow, how can one little hen make so much mess!

On Wednesday we took Lenny and two of the young alpaca boys to Two Bridges Hotel for the Dartmoor Partnership Showcase day. This event gives us the opportunity to introduce ourselves to a lot of accommodation providers who can tell there customers about us and our llama walks. Also it is great for networking with other industries with in the National park. We picked up some information about solar energy which would be great for our own holiday cottages. Dartmoor Farmers were there providing their lovely burgers and sausages. We set up our stand outside on the lawn and had a lot of interest in the Llama walks and our two little alpacas which we are hoping to sell. Lenny gets bored in these situations and has been know to tip the water bucket over visitors feet before, so I took him for several walks during the day and he also went for a paddle in the river.

Yesterday we collected the Stud males from Lakeham Alpacas and did some breedings with our girls, Demeter who spat off two weeks ago sat again, Phoebe spat off and Cassini sat again so not too bad, try again next week.

Steve's work is coming along nicely now and we have settled into a pattern of work and Alpaca / llama stuff, funny though!........ we still seem to be rushing around like mad things but at least we are getting stuff done around the place.

The llama gift vouchers we sold over the Christmas period are now starting to come in and we have loads of walks booked for the coming months.

Our holiday cottages are full until end of September which is really disappointing for one of our regular guests who rung this week to ask which dates we had free in August! and was shock to find out that they had been booked since well before Christmas...... we did tell them last year but I feel they thought it was a sales ploy, maybe they will book early for next year.

We have even managed to fill the odd few days we had free with llama walk people looking to stay for a few days. What this really means is our kitchen will look like a chinese laundry for the next few months and the Aga will not be turn off as airing washing is so easy with it on. ...........oh joy! and of course I will be making copious amounts of cream teas as a welcome gift, but I will have to test them first.

Well it is wet here today which is why I am able to finally post this blog I was hoping to post some pictures of our whites ........sorry very dirty grey boys who were taking turns in a muddy rolling patch this morning but the computer said ....."NO" I just hope the show team have not decided to do the same. Anyway back to it, may get pics on later.

Spit, Spit and more spit

2010-05-10T13:47:00.000-07:00

After nearly a full day at work we decided it would be a good time to introduce Toledo our young Stud llama to Jazz the rather stroppy female llama. Well if she had already been with a male you would have said it was a definite spit off. She was really giving it some, there was green stuff flying everywhere, poor Toledo, this was his first attempt. Jazz is quite a tall girl and Toledo is rather short and stocky but this didn't seem to bother him.

Anyway after a good period of time dodging showers of spit we decided to remove Jazz from the pen except we couldn't get near enough to put the lead rope onto her halter so had to resort to opening the pen letting Jazz out hopefully with out letting Toledo escape as well. Well he wasn't a happy boy, huffing and puffing, he must have been exhausted, we let him calm down, he really didn't want to go back into his field, he stood gazing at Jazz for ages afterwards while she just glared at him.

Not sure what to do now, she gave Warrior the same treatment last year, really not impressed with our choice of suitors. We would dearly like to breed some llamas but with this sort of reaction I can't see it happening. If anyone has any suggestion on how to get Jazz to be a little more amenable I would love to hear it.

On a happier note our little hen is bringing up her three little chicks to be independent just like there mum, she took them walk about today, I couldn't find them and suspected the fox had had them but then she appeared from the undergrowth and returned to the nest under the shed.

Our other broody which is in the broody coop hatched out one chick this afternoon and another egg was just starting to hatch when we came home, so I will have to wait and see how many she has tomorrow.

The only other bantam I notice today has started to sit in one of the nest boxes so I am going to get some hatching eggs to put under her.

Must be time for an update

2010-05-09T13:00:00.000-07:00

Well we have been a bit busy he over the last week, so much for having more time now Steve is no longer employed. We have done some breedings with some of the open females so hopefully we will have some spit offs later this week.

Our little bantam hen who had gone broody under our shed hatched out 3 chicks from the hens eggs I put under her, one yellow, one orangy coloured and one black, no idea what they will turn out to be.

Steve has had his digger in bits and lots of new bits have come in the post, at one point these new bits were all over the front room floor, at least they were clean it's when the old oily bits come in I get worried. The digger is back together now and lives to dig another day which I hope will be later this week when he has a job to do for one of our neighbours.

The holiday cottages are full and I discovered that one lot of holiday makers are regular readers of this blog, it comes as a bit of a surprise when someone turns up and asks how Toledo is after his visit from the vet. I also discovered that they come from somewhere in Northumberland near Barnacre Alpacas, small world isn't it.

The problem with having the cottages full is that I always leave a cream tea in the fridge which means I have to make scones, which means I have to eat a couple just to check they are OK, obviously I have to put clotted cream and jam on these test scones just to get the full impact, this does not bode well for my diet!

We ran out of oil this week as well which to say the least is a bit of an inconvenience, but you do realise how much we rely on the stove to get the washing aired as well as for the cooking. So at the moment we are using two electric rings and a mirco, oven, grill thing, which actually makes fantastic scones. The upside of this situation is that the stove has had a good clean and is now sparkling in the kitchen waiting for the oil which will hopefully be delivered tomorrow.

Today we delivered Willow to her new home, as she is pregnant we wanted this to be as stress free as possible. We brought the trailer down to the field this morning along with one of our geldings 'Silver Spark', as Willow is possibly the nosiest alpaca around she was very interested in the fact that there was a new alpaca about, making it easy for us to get her into the trailer with out much fuss.

Once at her new home we walked Silver Spark aka as Sparky on a halter down to the field, Willow just followed along looking very interested in every thing around.

Once into the field she was introduced to her new field companion 'Pearl' we decided to leave Sparky there as well as an extra companion until the two girls have there babies later this summer.

There was a certain amount of broad siding, spitting and a little bit of kicking going on and a lot of running around the field, so much for keeping her calm, her new owners hadn't seen alpacas move so fast before. We wish Roland and Jo at Alpacas at Tower Park every success for the future.

Finally is this what the young Alpaca farmer is wearing this season?

I particularly like the pink wellies!

Vets & Veggies

2010-05-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

We spent most of the morning waiting for the vet to arrive, nothing serious just routine stuff really. We try to give Richard a list of jobs to do when he is here as his travel costs are usually the most expensive part of the bill. Firstly we wanted to do our blue tongue vaccine, but the vaccine hadn't arrived so thats a job for another day. Then we wanted Richard to deal with the fighting teeth on Toledo, he is coming up three now and we caught a glimpse of a lovely set of very sharp looking fighting teeth the other day, as Toledo is our only entire male llama he does think he is top dog and does tend to bully some of the other boys. Toledo was sedated for the procedure and was very laid back about the whole situation. So he now has a nice set of blunt teeth with which he can't hurt any of his field companions.

Then we are on to Jazz one of our female llamas, she had her last cria a few years ago and last year was not at all interested in the very handsome Stud male we had invited down to Devon just for her benefit. So this year we have given her a injection just to get her cycle sorted out and then we will introduce her to Toledo who by then will have got over his dental experience and hopefully she will be more impressed with Toledo then she was with the lovely Warrior.

Finally Richard did a inspection on the lovely Willow (which she past with flying colours) who will soon be heading off to pastures new, more about that later.

This afternoon I rushed into Ashburton to stock up on supplies which also involved having a cup of tea with Tania from Caton Alpacas, just to catch up on Alpaca gossip ( and there is certainly a lot of that at the moment). Steve had a lovely afternoon taking his digger to bits then putting it back together again not before he order a whole load of new parts though. Then we went back up to the fields, Steve chain harrowed one of the paddocks while I planted loads of salad and veg seeds in our newly weeded veg plot. So not a bad day really back to a proper work day tomorrow!

Having a great day!

2010-04-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

I have had a great day today, firstly I got to feed all the animals this morning, Steve has been doing them most mornings now he has got to get to work until 9ish now. This morning he was off doing a little job with the mini digger before we loaded up some of the girls to take them up to Lakeham Alpacas for breeding/ spit off's. Our Stud males have been at Lakeham all winter and last week Mike and Liz brought them down to us for our first breedings of the year. Our turn to drive this time, so we loaded Phoebe and her cria into the trailer, she is really easy to handle and just walked into the trailer with her cria. Next off to widecombe to pick up Demeter and Cassini, not so easy as Demeter is a wily old girl and is not easy to get out of the field, but once out she loads easily. Last week Demeter sat but the other two were not having anything to do with Golden Nugget.

This week no such problem, first Cassini with Nugget, the Demeter with Caliban this was a definite spit off, Demeter is always reliable, she is an older female imported in 1996, always produces lovely big strong cria. Finally Phoebe in with Nugget after he had had a good long rest while we had lunch and a cup of tea and plenty of alpaca chat with Mike & Liz. Phoebe seemed a little reluctant to start with even spitting at Nugget but then sat, ............well a girl can't be seen to be too easy can she!

We dropped all the girls including little Mica back in Widecombe which has now become our work in progress fields, anything that has been anywhere of our farm is now in Widecombe so as not to mix with the rest of the herd.

Tonight we had some really good news just to finish the day off, but more of that later.

Steve has gone to get a takeaway and I am supposed to be doing the ironing for the cottages but thought I would update the blog instead.

A Bridge and a Tape measure

2010-04-29T00:17:00.000-07:00

In the village we live in we have a small bridge over the West Webburn River it has a 7ft 6in restriction on it and over the years we have witnessed all sorts of vehicles trying to get over the bridge. Since the introduction of Sat Nav it has got worse as now drivers don't read the signs. We have had 56 seater coaches coming through and getting stuck, lorries, white van man who usually tries to get across and actually getting stuck. Even a fire engine which was to wide to get over but yesterday on my way home from the fields I came across the strangest sight! I came down the hill towards the bridge to find a large Mercedes estate car stopped in the road in front of the bridge, I stopped as often holiday makers like to take pictures of their car driving over the little bridge. I was amazed to see a gentleman with a tape measure actually measuring the width of the bridge before deciding if his car would fit! Perhaps lorry drivers should be issued with a tape measure as well as their Sat Navs !

Today we should be going on a llama walk but the forecast is not good and looking out of the window it is clouding up so they might be right. Such a shame for the customers the weather has been so great for weeks.

Never mind I am sure we can find lots of indoor jobs to do, ..........account, housework, ironing, hope it doesn't rain for to long!

Some days............

2010-04-28T10:24:00.000-07:00

You know some days you really think that something is working against you! I have had two enquiries for Llama walks both on days when we aren't available to do them, one is Devon county show time and the other on a day we have arranged to do some breedings. then I get home and listen to the answer machine and there was two enquires for holiday cottages and guess what!......we're fully booked for the dates they wanted.............which is good but frustrating.

Then I look at the weather forecast for tomorrow and it gives some rain, which we really need but we have a Llama walk booked in..............it's been dry for at least 18 days why couldn't it wait just one more! We had a spectacular walk planned but it needs to be a really good day, clear and not windy as it it very exposed, not much chance to shelter from the rain. So we need a plan B...............and possibly C.

I was watching the late pregnant Alpacas this afternoon and Marietta who is due in early June is already huge, she is a very compact girl anyway but now she is almost as wide as she is tall.

Last years cria arrived right on 11.5 months.....thats a good seven weeks away. all of the girls are spending a lot of time sitting down chewing the cud...........but then what else is there to do in this lovely weather..............Not a bad life!

Breeding etc

2010-04-25T04:32:00.000-07:00

We have sort of slotted in to a routine now of Steve working about 3 days a week and spending more time with the animals, if we can manage on this it will be great. We have got so much done around the farm in the last few weeks, the new dividing fence in the holiday cottage field is up just got to hang the gates now.

We collected the new Chicken house and have now moved the hens over, very interesting last night as we went up to the field as it was getting dark to check that they had all gone into roost. The three new hens were all tucked up in bed but our old hens were all looking longingly at the old house, so we had to catch each one and put them in the new shed, not easy when it is now dark and they can run under the house. Eventually we got them all in so hopefully tonight they will know where to go.

I now have to go and do some ironing as I have just taken a call from some one who wants a cottage for a few nights and I have to make up the beds, so I may be back later.

I hate to say this but we need some rain

2010-04-21T15:27:00.000-07:00

I really do hate to say it but we really could do with some rain, it has been lovely and sunny here on Dartmoor for a few weeks now and our grass is still not really growing. We were out on the moor on Monday for a llama walk and the grass up there is still very dry and brown, even our field which we reseeded last autumn is starting to look very dry and yellow, not good it should be romping away at this time of the year. We spread some fertilizer on it this evening hoping that this will help get it going. i just wish we could arrange for a little rain to fall after about 9pm and finish about 6am so it can dry up before I need to get out for work.

Last September we ordered some Gloucester old spot weaners which were due to arrive early spring but alas we have heard nothing from the breeder and I have not received any replies to my e.mails, so I am now assuming that they will not be arriving. So after several phone calls and e.mails I have now managed to secure 3 Berkshire weaners which will be ready at the end of May. We have had pigs in the past and we really enjoyed having them, they are so intelligent and I can see how you could get attached to them, I thought I may have problems when it came to eating them but our local abattoir did a very good job in sending them back looking like they had come from a supermarket - vac packed and labeled. We did sell some of the meat to cover the costs and we had some very good comments about the quality and flavour of the meat. So we are really looking forward to having pigs again - they don't get names though!

We have been giving our Alpaca breeding program some thought over the past week and I think we have decided on which males are going over which females ... but this may change as we see this years cria on the ground, these will be the first cria from our herd sires - Golden Nugget and Caliban, really looking forward to June when the first girls are due. We are bringing the males down from Lakeham Alpacas where they have been for the winter on Friday to start matings on some of the females which have been empty over the winter, this should give us some early April births next year.

The day after the weekend before

2010-04-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

Well back down to earth after the SWAG show. We had dropped the show animals off in a temporary paddock last night so this morning we went over to Widecombe and caught them all up. As it was such a lovely day we halter them and took some pics with their ribbons on.

Not a bad bunch really.

Following the photo shot we moved them to their permanent paddock well away from the rest of the herd where they will stay until they go to Devon County show in about a month. I think Titan may need some intensive ring craft training before then as he was still playing up today as in this pic!

The rest of the day has really been a bit of a relaxed affair, part of our new lifestyle, we came home had a coffee before preparing a cream tea for a llama walk this afternoon. I packed up a picnic lunch as well which we took up to the field to have before we loaded up the llamas. I knew those deck chairs we brought at the weekend would come in handy!......

The decision as to which boys to take on the walk, now how to go about that! Today we just opened the gate from their new field and the first three through get to go on the walk, on this occasion it was Polo, Blackjack and Sparky the Alpaca. The others will have to learn to be quicker next time. We had a lovely walk for a couple of hours over the moors, sat and eat a cream tea and then came home again, not bad and we get paid for that.......

We now have two broody Bantams one sitting under the shed on about a dozen eggs half of which we have exchanged for hens eggs so it will be interesting to see what hatches out. The other one is just starting to sit in one of the nest boxes in the hen house and she has about four eggs at the moment, so I am going to see if I can get some hatching eggs to put under her, I quite fancy some Araucanas for the blue eggs, so thats the next job for tonight.

Swag show, amazing weekend

2010-04-18T14:26:00.000-07:00

Well we have just arrived back from the SWAG show and what a show it was. Firstly the weather was great, sunny and warm which was a welcome change after two years being frozen to the core at the Bristol venue.

Much to our amazement Midnight our intermediate black female took the champion black female ribbon, the pictures are of me having a little pep talk to Midnight as we waiting to go in the ring and of us in the ring with a bright orange championship sash.

We only had one animal to show on Saturday so most of the day was spent catching up with friends old and new, it was good to meet Applevale Alpacas who were having their first go at showing their Alpacas and we hope they enjoyed the experience.

Today we had the boys, Titan, Atlas and Calypso, Titan was up first so I had the same little pep talk with him before we went into the ring. He is usually a little angel, walks well and doesn't mind being handled, he obviously forgot all about that today. He walk into the ring like a proper little star but then decided to throw himself around, stand on his back legs and generally be a pain in the neck. He stood reasonably still while the judge inspected him and then continued in the same vain. Again I was amazed when we were awarded a third place

rosette. Next it was Atlas's turn followed by Calypso in the very next class, these two had to have a joint pep talk and I think Atlas took it on board especially the bit about behavior in the ring as he walked into the ring very proudly and stood still in what ever position he was placed

and when he was inspected by the judge. He was awarded a fifth place in a very large class of junior fawns, so I was really please with this result. A quick swap of animals and it was Calypso's turn, he is always well behaved in the ring and even though I think he is gorgeous he wasn't placed this time but there was some very impressive boys in that class.

All in all a good weekend 3 out of the 4 animals we took to the show won rosettes not bad when we only have a few animals to choose from and really satisfying to see the results of our breeding program producing prize winning Alpacas.

Can't wait until Devon County show next month.

What a morning

2010-04-16T03:19:00.000-07:00

Well it has been a bit of a hectic morning, starting with worming the llamas and Alpacas in the home paddocks and moving them to new paddocks. Worming alpacas is no problem but with the llamas they are a little bit bigger and stronger and if they don't want to stand still they won't, anyway all done and not to much coughing up the drench. It always worries me when they stat coughing, not much you can do to help them is there.

Next a neighbour call round to collect some wood chippings for their garden, we had loads as we had taken some trees down last year and chipped up the branches, stored them in Dump bags so they were already to be used as mulch.

Then get the feeding instructions for the animal sitter while we are away. Catch the animals that are going to the show, check them over and try to remove as much debris as possible before they go in a trail with straw and get covered with that!

Then home to tidy up which is what I am supposed to be doing now, before going back to the Holiday Cottages to do a change over ready for guests arriving tomorrow, Steve is going to Widecombe to feed the girls over there.

Finally we will have some lunch before setting off to the SWAG show in Bristol. If any of you guys are there, we will no doubt see you and good luck.

Lovely fluffy Alpacas and Glorious weather

2010-04-12T14:12:00.000-07:00

Well it has been a few days since I managed to write anything on this blog, as the weather has been so good we have been busy around the fields and holiday cottages. Getting in later in the evenings as it is lighter later now, by the time I have got dinner I usually fall asleep on the sofa as soon as I sit down.

Saturday we had to go to Derriford Hospital for Steve to have a CT scan on his hip which ironically does not seem to be hurting as much now, so hopefully it will be OK. While we were in Plymouth we brought some climbing plants to grow along the balconies of the cottages, some honeysuckle for the scent and a Clematis Montana for some early flowers.

We spent the rest of the weekend tidying up around the fields, moving the chicken houses and runs onto fresh grass and even cutting the grass around the holiday cottages. As we seem to spend most of our time down there we moved all our garden furniture from home to the patio in the cottage garden, it will get more use down there. We also took some of our large glazed flower pots down and replanted them with spring flowers, so it all looks very smart and well kept now just in time for our new holiday makers this week.

All the llamas and Alpacas are looking good, all fluffy and cuddly spending their days sunbathing and generally enjoying the sunshine. Mica our little cria is doing well and today refused to take anything from the bottle and her little tummy was feeling quite full so maybe her mum has finally started to produce enough milk to keep her happy.

Today Steve started the new fence, he has put in the gate hanging post which is huge, he has assured me that he is going to cut the top off it to bring it down to size. We got some old telegraph poles which make great gate posts and strainers but they are heavy. We are splitting out two acre field in half with a twelve foot gate at one end so we can get the big tractor through for hedge trimming etc, the other end will have a six foot gate which will give us pedestrian access. We have the new field shelter in the top half of this field so I think it will be kept as a birthing paddock, we are hoping to put a web camera on the shelter so we can look at the girls from home and check they are OK, this will be very helpful and less intrusive for the girls.

We are off to the SWAG show on Friday so I have been watching the weather forecast to see if this dry weather is going to last until the weekend so I don't have to put the show animals inside to keep them dry. Midnight has had her refresher course on halter training and has been doing really well so has now decided that she no longer needs to go for a walk each morning, she won't come in to the catch pen to feed in the mornings but sort of teases me by nearly coming in then running off just as you think you have got her. I will use the indian rope trick tomorrow and get her into the catch pen for a final training session.