Are we all halter train and doing Pedicures?

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!