We decided yesterday to bring all the animals in at night until the weather improves. We have a forecast of bitterly cold easterly wind and although most of the llamas were ok some of the alpacas and Georgina were shivering. We are trying out a foal coat on Georgina which seems to work OK. We do not have barns of our own so with the good will of our neighbours we have access to some buildings. So they are all in tucked up with loads of straw for bedding, hay racks full and plenty of water, we are hoping to let them all out for a while today as our animals are not used to being inside all the time.
Getting the female alpacas in was quite a difficult experience, they are over in Widecombe so I went over in the morning fed them and prepared an old stable , which involved clearing away all the clutter accumulated over the last summer, putting up a hay rack, bedding up and finding the water trough. Late afternoon we went over to get the girls in, all went well until the old girl Demeter decided that the stable was not a good option and escaped from the herd and headed up the drive. She then leaped over the cattle grid and was now heading for the road. followed by my daughter with a feed bucket, me with a rope and Steve in the discovery. Demeter by now had reached the road and was heading for open moorland, luckily she took the next left hand turn into a neighbouring driveway but over another cattle grid. We managed to herd her back to where she was meant to be this time using the gates at the side of the grids. Now how to get her into the stable with out letting the rest back out. With three of us blocking the exits the door of the stable was opened a little and she calmly walked in.
Demeter has always been cautious of anything different but this is the best yet, hope it isn't like this tonight, not sure we can cope with the excitement. Thankfully she didn't reach the open moor as I am not sure how we would have got her back. It's snowing again now so getting to the fields is going to be an experience.
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