Finally managed to take the camera

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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.