A Decision

It is that time of the year when you can feel yourself wishing the time away, can't wait for this years cria to be born, some of the females are starting to look a little rotunda and some of them are definitely getting stroppy. They are all in good condition, nobody losing condition which is unusual for this time of year. In fact we have been weighing every couple of weeks and their weights are very stable, it’s a bit like weight watchers as they all take their turn on the scales!
So to give us something to focus on we have decided to name the day for our open day which this year is going to be on the 9th April Easter Monday. We would usually wait until there is some cria on the ground but our are a bit later this year and to be honest we would just put it off and it would never happen.
So now all I have to do is get all the knitwear ready to go to the Futurity in a couple of weeks, carry on training the Show team to behave in the show ring ready for the SWAG show and make all the arrangement for the open day.
Better get on with it then!

A really scary Alpaca

It's been a quiet time around here just the usual round of feeding, poo picking and general husbandry tasks. We have escaped from the worst of the snow, it has been cold and we had to break ice on the troughs for several days but the warmer weather has returned.

Whilst we were in the cold snap our oldest female alpaca was feeling the chill, she doesn't grow much fleece and we usually shear her every other year, which was last summer.  Anyway we have a coat for her to wear when it is really cold and I decided she would appreciate her winter coat for a few days.  She wasn't very impressed with the fitting process and splattered the sides of the field shelter with the green stuff.  Once fitted I let her back out with the rest of the herd, they were not impressed at all with this new but very scary sight of Carla with her blue coat on and headed off down the field with Carla in pursuit which just made them run faster, it was a very funny sight to watch but I did feel sorry for Carla who really couldn't understand why everyone was running away from her.  They would stand in a group hug watching her until she started to approach then turn tail and run off. Even after three days they were still being curious.  It is much warmer today so the coat has come off and all is calm again.

The group 'what is that!'

One really scary Alpaca

This morning we got all the girls and weaned cria to give them a shot of ADE and a pedicure, then some halter training for the cria who are all doing really well, they do walk better on the outward journey than on the homeward stretch but I think this will improve with practice.  I am hoping to start some more intensive show ring training next week, always a good idea, then I can at least go into the ring knowing that they do know what is going to happen even if they seem to forget all that they have learnt when they have their turn in the ring.
I am busy knitting stock for our table at the Futurity, only six weeks ish,  I have booked the hotel so we are definitely going, couldn't believe the cost of some of the hotels around the NEC but managed to find one which is reasonably close and not to bad a price.
Think I will start to decide which shows we are going to enter animals in and work out when I need to get the entries in.

I have been out practising with the camera so heres a couple of pics from my walk home each morning, something I am trying to do even though I can now drive.

A little bit of snow on Hambledown

Finally I managed to get a picture of Murphy our young llama who is now 18 months old, he really has grown into a very handsome llama with a great temperament ( he has an appointment with the vet very soon but I haven't told him yet)